


Past and Present Tension

by Draskireis



Series: The Two Generals Problem [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Assumed homophobia, Depression, M/M, Nursey's obscure literary references, Pre-Slash, The Holsom hivemind, alternating pov, enemies to frenemies, extended backstories, proper depictions of boarding school, tags and appearing characters updated as needed, various OMCs/OFCs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-02-08 03:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12856191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draskireis/pseuds/Draskireis
Summary: That first practice wasn’t the beginning, though, not really.  Before that beginning was the prehistory.  Nursey didn’t—after all—start off as Nursey, all constructed chill and faux nonchalance.  Dex wasn’t always defensive, reactive, combative.  Before Nursey, there was Nurse; Before Dex, there was William.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Blame for this whole thing should be laid at the feet of marauder_in_warblerland, who needed to keep me occupied while I was visiting and she was working (and therefore introduced me to OMGCP fic as if that were an innocent diversion). This first part of TGP is complete and will be posted weeklyish. I'm midway through the second part, and the remainding three are in various stages of planning, outlining, and good-god-so-many-ancillary-documents. Lightly beta-read and largely self-edited (ping me about typographical failures, cuz that shit's offputting but hard to catch sometimes).

It starts, most of the team thinks, the moment the pair of them hits the ice.  It doesn’t, but let’s humor them for a moment.  Any start to any story is arbitrary unless you start at the big bang, or if that didn’t start things off, then whatever preceded it.  Thus, Samwell Men’s Hockey’s misimpression can be the medias res in which we’ll begin.  It’s not quite the fall, and it’s the first practice, and they’re frogs but not yet the Frogs.

 

William, pale, lean, and flame-haired, had just become Dex by some complicated alchemy involving Ransom and Holster’s mind meld and a half-spoken, half-eyebrow debate as to which syllable of his name sounded the most appropriately bro.  He was… unsure of the name, but figured it would do alright.  Been called worse.  It seemed that Nurse—tawny skinned, fashionably stubbled, entirely too pretty, and apparently his defensive half—had become Nursey on the taddy tour, and already knew the pasty, mustachioed guy who insisted his name was Shitty.  Nursey hadn’t seemed like he’d noticed Dex on the tour, but had latched onto Chowder at about the same time as the Californian goalie had decided he would be Dex’s friend.

They got on the ice, and the coaches paired Dex with Nursey.  The moment he was over the boards, Chowder switched from bubbly and babbly to laser-focused and expressionless.  It was a bit unnerving.  Nursey, for his part, played with easy confidence and a showiness that meant he wasn’t paying as much attention to his defensive partner as he might have been.  Dex, striving for his usual workmanlike competence, grimaced each time he had to overextend to reach a pass—or, worse, missed one entirely for not having been quick enough to get it.  Each time Nursey fucked up, Dex worried that he was being made to look bad, either by association or by his inability to unfuck whatever Nursey had going on.  By the time the practice scrimmage finished, Dex’s frustration and anxiety had compressed into anger, and he quivered with it as he changed.

‘Hey Nurse.  The fuck was that all about?’  He changed without looking up from his cubby, stripping efficiently and starting toward the showers.

‘Hmm?  I mean it’s chill, Dex.  I forgive you for not taking my passes.’  Nursey offered him a lazy grin as he haphazardly stuffed his gear into his stall.

‘Those were passes.  Well there.  Good to know.  Maybe next time try sending the puck to where I am or, if that’s too much, might possibly end up.  Your fancy gear should help you with that.’

‘Oh, you like it?  My mom got it new for me this year.  Enjoy it while you last, brah.’

Dex stood before he knew he was doing it, a bright, angry flush extending down his neck.  He headed toward the showers with his mouth in a thin line, moving like he’d sharpened his elbows.  Nursey changed slower, stretching extraneously and occasionally looking at the lines of words ringing the design tattooed on his arm, as if reviewing an assignment.  He shrugged to himself as he got up and headed into the showers, having let the others precede him.  Dex shouldered past him on his way out.

‘Watch it, Dex.  I’m brown, not invisible.’

‘How does that have anything to do with it?  Watch it yourself.  Or do you expect people to reroute their lives off the ice to suit your whims just as much as you expect people to be wherever you, as you claim, pass?’

‘Chilllllllll, Dex.’

‘Really?  Not gonna actually respond, just demand that _I_ back off?’  Dex made some kind of strangled, frustrated noise as he returned to his cubby to dry off and dress.  He was long gone by the time Nursey had finished showering.  Just as well for everyone.  A fight in his first practice would be a bad first impression.  A small voice in the back of his head told him that leaving in a huff after nearly getting into a fight—in his first practice—was just a bare shade better.

At least he was fairly sure Nursey didn’t know about his scholarship—how could he?  If he did, though, the chirping would be just the sort of needling he’d need to make Dex snap completely.  He walked back toward his dorm, wishing the world were different.  Somehow he was still a townie despite being a student here, overtly lower class and all rough edges. 

Dex keyed himself into his dorm, trudged up the stairs to his room, and unlocked the door.  There was a stark difference between his side of the room and Andrew’s: one was plastered with posters, large and small, of singers and gaming promotional materials and maps of unreal places while the other was clean and bare beyond a framed picture of William’s family. 

Andrew wasn’t in, which was just as well.  He was a decent guy—also gonna be a CS major, gamer, from Boston.  Still, he probably—again, impressions—wouldn’t be enthusiastic to watch as William—Dex, now—turned Rise Against up on his laptop, flung himself facedown onto his bed, and screamed into his pillow for a full minute.

When he decided that a song’s worth of screaming was probably the limit of acceptable dramatics, Dex picked himself up, smoothed out his comforter on the bed—making sure to tuck Sir Bear back underneath the pillow—and opened up Steam, pulling up Path of Exile.  Screaming and fighting might be overboard, but pixelated fantasy murder was acceptable, right?  That and a square of emergency chocolate should keep his head on right.  For the moment.

 

That first practice wasn’t the beginning, though, not really.  Before that beginning was the prehistory.  Nursey didn’t—after all—start off as Nursey, all constructed chill and faux nonchalance.  Dex wasn’t always defensive, reactive, combative.  Before Nursey, there was Nurse; Before Dex, there was William. 

* * *

The day of the block party, Ma was in full director mode.  Even Dad didn’t get in the way when she got like this.  William always described her—to the few people who didn’t already know her, so mostly it had been in college interviews and essays, lately—as a force of nature.  She was making potato salad and still managing the activities of the seven other Poindexters within yelling distance.

Dad and James were out in the yard, James moving tables and some borrowed picnic benches for seating.  Dad raked the yard and occasionally assisted when something defeated James’s attempts to show off his strength.  William’s sisters—Siobhan, Kelly, and Eileen—were all in the kitchen cooking or baking various dishes under Ma’s supervision.  William had been informed he got to do no strenuous work, being the cause of the celebration, so he took it upon himself to man the grill—some chicken, some fish his uncle had gotten in trade for taking another fisher’s kid onto his boat, and whatever else the neighbors and extended family would bring over as the day wore on.

William felt weird being the cause for the celebration—being the center of attention at all.  He was used to working quietly, diligently away at whatever mattered to him at a given point in time.  Sometimes congratulated, sometimes corrected.  He was a good kid, a good student, a hard worker; as such, he was rarely disciplined—beyond the fights.  He felt bad that Kelly hadn’t gotten this sort of blow out to celebrate her full ride to Bates.

It wasn’t bad until people started coming over.  Everyone insisted on making a beeline to the grill to congratulate him.  At first it was in ones and twos, but as the neighbors arrived, it became flocks and droves.  The inside of his skin began to itch.  He tried to avoid outward signs of discomfort—after all, everyone was here to be nice to him, to congratulate him, to make him feel special or whatever—so he just gripped the grill tools harder, knuckles paling even beyond his usual pasty hue.

William was holding it together so well, he thought, until James started in on Arthur from two blocks over.  The kid was skinny and shy, a little bit effeminate in the way that seemed to personally offend his oldest brother.  He’d be pretty cute once he grew up some.  James started following the kid around, as if it weren’t creepy to tail someone a decade your junior, as if it weren’t cruel to single someone out to inflict discomfort on them.  Dex wasn’t sure he could take James in a fair fight; he waited until they got closer.  Dread coiled in his stomach.

Arthur was a grade below William—and therefore a decade younger than James—so they didn’t know each other that well, but nodded at each other in recognition when they passed in the halls.  He’d only intervened on Arthur’s behalf the once, but the hockey team had gotten the message and kept an eye out, made it so he’d only had to do it the once.  William disliked bullies and wasn’t afraid of fights, on or off the ice.

A fight was coming towards him, too.  He knew it.  James was following Arthur closer now.  Muttering things intended only for Arthur’s ears as the kid walked up to offer William his congratulations.

‘Hey.  Congratulations on getting into Samwell.  And on the scholarship—that’s really impressive.  You’ll do everyone proud, I’m sure.’

‘Thanks, Arthur.  How’re things with you?’

William drew out the small talk for as long as he could handle, running meat across the grill the whole time, waiting for James to either strike or decide it wasn’t worth the effort.  James eventually sauntered over.  Smirking.

‘Having fun with your little friend, Billy?’

‘It’s William, James.  You know this.  Having fun stalking a boy across our yard rather than spending time with your wife and children?’

‘Oh, Jessica’s got them all in hand, I’m sure.  I just wanted to know why you’d invited a sissy to our shindig.’

‘One, it’s my shindig if it’s anyone’s.  Two, Ma did all the invites, including family—including yours, regrettably—and all the neighbors within basically half a mile.  Three, you should really consider what your deal is before you start talking.’

‘That’s rich, coming from you.  How many fights have you gotten into this year?  And why’re you protecting him?  He’s right here—can’t he stand up for himself?’

‘It’s as much you coming over here and pissing me off as anything else.  Do I have to remind you that I’m not only making your food, but am armed while doing it?’

‘You threatening me?  Pretty sure I could take you, armed or no.’

‘It’d be an uneven fight, no matter how it went.  But Ma would kill whichever of us survived for ruining the party.  So why don’t you fuck off back to your wife and leave anyone who’s five or more years your junior alone.’

Unwilling to press the issue further for whatever reason, James did precisely that, throwing a dark look over his shoulder that made William glad his brother didn’t live at home.  William’s pulse was still rocketing through his veins, and he felt close to puking.  It had been a while, and he really hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

‘Sorry about him.  He’s an asshole.’

‘It happens.  I’m just glad you’re a good dude, as much as you try to hide it.  Thanks.’

Kelly came over to them, probably sensing the weird tension in the air, or maybe having seen the fraternal standoff.  Arthur made his excuses, reiterated his (sarcastic?  Envious?  William was overanalyzing everything now.  Great.) congratulations, and slipped off into the afternoon.

‘Hey Kells.’

‘Hey yourself.  Weren’t you told not to do more work than necessary?  I’m kicking you off grill duty.’  She gave him a quick half-hug and murmured in his ear ‘Defending that kid from James musta taken a toll.  The house is pretty empty.  Go cool off a bit.  I’ll cover for you.’

William kissed her forehead and slipped away from the party to collect himself.  He climbed the stairs to his room, put his headphones in and blasted a burned AFP CD on his inherited discman.  It took a full bar of emergency chocolate and half an hour of him staring at the wall before his anxiety retreated to its usual prickle at the back of his head. 

* * *

Nurse, camouflaged by his compliance with dress code and standing out only with his green beanie, walked through the corridor that knit together the various parts of Andover’s main building, stretching from the library, past the classics rooms in their awkward nook, Forbes on the left, English on the right (mailboxes in between), onward toward further language classrooms and the Senior Lounge, administrative offices, admissions, the Paresky dining hall, before turning and concluding its run at the front desk, where Mrs. Collins wrote children’s books in her down-time.  Nurse slowed as he slipped into the crossroads between the hallway and the student center and the English wing.  Nurse stopped—a stutter-step, really—to flick open his mailbox (lockless, like all the others) to see if there were any mail for him.

There was.  A thick manila envelope, addressed to his full name.  From Samwell.  Nurse came to a full stop, wrestling the curled envelope—stuffed so full it nearly qualified as a package—out of the confines of the mailbox.  Looking around, Nurse confirmed that he was alone for the moment.  Just to be safe, though, he ducked into the English wing and stepped into the office.  Campbell was there, reading something out of a Norton.  He nodded at Nurse without looking up.

Carefully, Nurse opened the envelope.  Several letters, it looked like, and his nerves eased some.  This wasn’t a rejection, he was pretty sure.  The first one was sent under the name of the Dean of Admissions: ‘Dear Derek, it is with great pleasure that I write to offer you…’  Derek stopped reading with a small fist-pump.

‘The phone’s right there, Nurse.  I wasn’t here and saw nothing.  Congratulations.’

‘Thanks.’

He called his mom first.  It rang through, ten seconds, fifteen.  Voicemail.  ‘Hey mom.  Just calling to let you know that I got into Samwell.  I think I’m the first in my class to hear.  Now I can relax about applications and just get back to schoolwork.  Sorry to bother you.  Love you.  Bye.’

He hung up and sighed.  Dialed another number.  This one picked up on the second ring: his father had a secretary for a reason, after all.

‘Mr. Nurse’s office, may I ask who is calling?’

‘Hey Cathy, it’s Derek.  Dad’s not available, is he?’

‘Sorry, Derek.  He’s in a meeting.  Would you like to leave him a voice mail?’

‘Yeah, if that’s no trouble.  Thanks, Cathy.’

‘Sure.  I’ll transfer you.’

After a pause, a click, and a beep, Nurse listened to his father’s voice tell him that he was unavailable, to leave a message, and that his call would be returned as soon as he was able.  He knew the drill; didn’t believe it for a moment.

‘Hi, Dad.  I know I oughtn’t to call during work hours, but I figured this if anything merited an exception.  I’m pretty sure I’m the first kid in my class to hear back any good news about college—that is, I got into Samwell.  Talk to you, I guess.  Bye.’

Nurse hangs up, a lump in his throat.  He’d pictured this differently—pictured this through hope-tinted (tainted) lenses.  Hope betrayed him again, he thought with an internal shrug.  He didn’t realize that Campbell’d moved—for all that he was the hockey and crew coach, and a generally massive dude, the man could move with the stealth of a weeping angel—until he realized he was offering a hug.  It was brief, comforting, and short enough to not disarm Nurse’s chill.

‘Thanks.’

‘You worked hard for it.  All of my edits—and your swearing at me—about your essay paid off.  Congratulations, Nurse.  Now get out of here before Ms. Desmond arrives for our meeting and sees me fraternizing with students in the teachers’ office.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which other characters than our two primary idiots appear.

Another practice; another miscommunication; another fight about race, money, privilege—the pre-season proceeded like clockwork.  Chowder’s disappointment and his puppy dog eyes hadn’t stemmed the fight.  The yelling had caught Jack’s attention.  Their captain had stormed over, forced himself between them, and—his voice all the more threatening for being quiet—told the defensive pair to do this elsewhen or elsewhere if they must, but not then and never there.  Dex had changed as quickly as ever and bolted.  Back to the dorms or wherever he usually fucked off to—Nursey didn’t keep track.  Didn’t care.

Nursey knew he was still hurting, still licking verbal wounds, still... gloating.  Huh.  That bore introspection—later, though.  Now, at least, he could revel in the sheer _feeling_ his arguments with That White Boy caused.  Another worrying sign, that.  Hrm.

Before Nursey could get too far into his ruminations, Chowder poked him in the side.  Nursey jumped in surprise and concentrated so hard on landing without twisting his ankle that he missed Chowder’s appraising glance.

‘Whatcha thinking, Nursey?  You were pretty far gone there.’

‘Eh.  Nothing much.  Just processing that shit with Dex.  It’s chill.’

‘He’s a good guy, although he could really stand to be exposed to more of how the world works.’

‘Chyeah—definitely that second point.’

Chowder hummed to himself, eventually falling into the melody of a Something Corporate song he’d been looping lately.  Nursey made a slight nod toward Annie’s, quirking an eyebrow.  Chowder grinned, and they detoured for caffeine.  There wasn’t much of a line, so they didn’t have long to wait before Chowder had his mocha and Nursey his iced chai.  On their way out, Nursey caught Chowder’s eye, the goalie smiled, still humming.  The silence became companionable, and they kept it all the way back to the Haus.

The Haus was not quiet.  Shitty had dragged a sheet across the biohazard couch so Bitty would only yell at him about his nudity rather than that _and_ his actually touching the couch.  Jack sat, reading—headphones in—at in the kitchen, a thick IR book, a couple history books, and several notebooks scattered across the kitchen table.  Ransom and Holster could be heard, even from the attic, caterwauling (well, Holster was singing.  Ransom was …trying) along with Les Mis—one of the duets, although with the butchering Nursey couldn’t quite identify which.  Lardo was nowhere to be seen.

‘Hey boys—dinner’s in twenty minutes.  Either of you heard from Dex or know where he is?’

‘Nope.’  Nursey popped the plosive and offered no further elaboration.

‘Nursey’s probably the wrong person to ask, brah,’ Shitty called.

‘I don’t suppose you’d know, sunshine?’  Bitty looked hopefully at Chowder.

‘Sorry, Bitty.’

Jack took his headphones out to suggest that he could go find Dex for Bitty.

‘No, Jack.  I think his captain is not a productive person to go find him, after that practice.’

‘He knows there’s Haus dinner tonight.  Fucker’s probably got it on a calendar or something.  You could just let him be an adult and decide whether or not the stick in his ass will allow him to show.’

‘Enough, Nursey.  Chowder, there’s a strawberry tart in it for you if you’d go find him and tell him that I made rhubarb blueberry pie tonight.’

‘Is he not responding to texts?  I haven’t sent him any—Nursey and I walked over here by way of Annie’s.’

‘Not from me, anyway.’

As Chowder left, Nursey locked eyes with Shitty and motioned upstairs.

‘Reading room?’

‘Sure thing, brah.’

They climbed the stairs, stopped briefly in Shitty’s room so he could get boxers on, and got to the reading room by way of Jack’s room and the bathroom he shared with Shitty.  Shitty made a grandiose gesture at the lawn chair.

‘Seat of honor, bro.  All yours, if you like.’

‘Nah, I’ll just lean up against the Haus.  Less risk of sliding off.’

‘You know your weaknesses—a wise man indeed.  Now tell Uncle Shitty what’s up.  You’re already chill enough that you didn’t ask me up here for help with that.’

‘You have to ask?’  Nurse grumbled, his armor of chill slipping off now that it was just him and Shitty.

‘Pretty sure I can guess, but it’s always more polite to ask.  Usually easier, too.’

‘Suppose so.  Nothing in particular’s up.  Well, nothing more than Dex, but I can ignore him when we’re not fighting or trying to play.’

‘Or pretend to.’

Nursey grunted.

‘Sorry—too close?  I’ll go back to pretending I don’t know your chill’s equal parts deflection and bravado, then.  Tell me about your problems with Shorter—I mean with Dex.’

Nursey rolled his eyes and said nothing.

‘Look—I’m not saying that Dex is perfect.  He’s got a fuckin chip on his shoulder the size of my trust fund.  But at least let him become an asshole on his own merits rather than just project one from your past onto him, yeah?  Might not be what you want to hear, but you didn’t answer my question, so this is what you get, brah.’

Shitty reached into the recesses of the chair and produced a pipe, a lighter, and a baggie.  He lit up and took a hit before offering it to Nursey, who shook his head.

‘Hah.  Us on the roof, you getting high and offering me advice.  History repeats itself.  Think I’ll just decompress as you chase enlightenment.’

‘As you wish.’

Nursey tried to consider Shitty’s words, tried to see whether he’d unintentionally tied Dex in with the bullies of his past—and, if so, whether it was fairly or otherwise.  It didn’t help that he could feel his borders closing in, that hated metaphorical distance from the world that first taught him an unaffected chill.  He leaned over slightly against the arm of the lawn chair.  Shitty took it as an invitation, rested an arm on his shoulder.  Time passed in silence.

‘Now, really, Dex.  Tell me why you were gonna skip Haus dinner.  I’m in half your classes and know how hard you work.  I mean, Bitty made a dessert specifically with you in mind!’

‘Half in mind.  The other half’s for Nursey.  Like baking us a joint dessert will make us forever-friends or something.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

‘True.’

‘Don’t make me break out my puppy-dog eyes.’

‘Oh god, you _do_ know that you’ve weaponized them.  We’re all doomed.  Especially Bitty.’

Nurse froze, not even breathing for a moment, for fear Dex or Chowder might think to look up and see him up there with Shitty.

‘Ughhhhhh.  Bitty gives you way too much credit for innocence, Chowder.  Fine.  I didn’t want to deal with everyone thinking today’s fight was my fault, like they seem to think all of our other fights are.  I try not to let the rich kid get under my skin.  I _try_ not to respond.  But it’s like he wants to get me kicked off the team, and never mind my scholarship.  Which, how would he even know about it?  Fuck.  Plus, he hangs out at the Haus more, and I didn’t wanna, like, intrude on his turf or whatever.  Leave it to him to be, like territorial or whatever.’

‘Don’t you think you’re making him just a bit worse in your head than he actually might be in reality?’

‘Hard not to.  I _need_ to stay on this team, and I need to do that in spite of him trying to fuck that over.  But apparently I’m still the villain here.’

‘Hey.  Breathe.  In and out.  Repeat often.  We’re all friends here.  Except maybe you and Nursey.  But you’re both my friends so that’s like it counts.  It’s just dinner.  Plus!  Pie just for you!’

A few moments passed in silence.  Nursey mentally adjusted his chill to its highest and looked up, giving Shitty a lazy smile.  He heard the door open and slam shut below.  Show time.

‘You may be right.  I’ll reserve judgment and chill in the meantime.  Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide—let’s go demolish Bitty’s dinner.’

* * *

Nurse slung his hockey bag into the closet.  He’d deal with the clothes later, he thought to himself—the parts needing rinsing rather than washing were all stowed in his locker.  Festering.  He kicked his book bag out of the path through the accumulated floor-clutter (the paths branched from the door to a) his desk, b) his closet, and c) his bed) and trudged forward to face-plant on his bed.  His pillows muffled his groan.

All he wanted was a nap.  Just an hour.  Or maybe six.  A week wouldn’t be too long to sleep, right?  B. would be disappointed, though.  He couldn’t do that to the one decent guy on the team.  Also, he was a prefect and had access to a master key.  So that was out—he set an alarm for an hour.

Instants later, it felt, Nurse was slapping at his alarm clock, even though his phone was the source of the beeping.  Consciousness caught up with reality, and he put his game face on for dinner.  He smoothed down his hair, put on an unrumpled button-down (open over a teal crew neck), locked his door behind him, and made his way through the dorm and down toward Paresky.

Nurse kept his head down as he got his food, ignoring the hubbub around him in line.  Five minutes later, he took a tentative seat at the end of the hockey team’s semi-officially claimed table just below the senior tables that would—but for the team—be populated mostly by upper-mids.

‘Got enough different drinks there, Ma—’

‘Nurse.  The man’s named Nurse.  Should be clear by now, _Shorty_.’  B., a skinny senior and winger whose rants about sexism were locker room legend, interrupted.

‘Shorter.’

‘Right.  My bad.  Shorter.  Use his name and we’ll use yours, brah.'

B. had distracted them, for a moment. Nurse kept to the fringes of the conversation, but made sure to participate enough to make it seem like he was a part of things. Camouflage through conformity, he thought, remembering his mother’s sidelong lessons about finesse. 

Nurse still ate quickly, and did not linger after finishing.

After practice that day, Nurse sat at his desk translating Latin mechanically while he waited for his laundry to finish.  It wasn’t study hall yet, but he knew he’d be tired again by then.  Someone knocked on his doorframe—his door was open, cuz he was in his room and awake.  By the time he looked up, B. was already flopping onto his bed.

‘Nice floordrobe you got there, brah.  Looks sparser than the last time I was in here.’

‘Laundry.’

‘Excellent.  Good to know that you know how to do that.  Most of the idiots here don’t learn until their parents see the laundry service bills, and some don’t even learn then.  Whatcha reading?’

‘Caesar.  DBG and other light translation work.’

‘Been through the Gallic Wars before, eh?’

‘Middle school.  Always been good with languages.  Words.’  Nursey shrugged, shoulders supplying his missing eloquence.  People didn’t come to his room, so he was nervous.

‘Good deal.  I just barely scraped through German.  Glad to be done with that.’

Nurse finished up the assigned passage while B., apparently, waited for him.  The silence that settled over the room would only be awkward, he thought, if he let it be.  So he didn’t.  Of course it was normal for a senior to descend upon his room with neither warning nor apparent purpose.

‘What’re you up to this evening, B.?’

‘Dude, call me Shitty like everyone else.  B.’s a compromise with the faculty and staff.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah, man.  I won’t answer to my name, and they won’t call me Shitty.  The initial’s a workaround for all involved parties.’

‘Gotcha.  I’ll… work on it.  If you answer my question.’

‘What?  A bro’s gotta have a reason to plonk down in another bro’s room?’

Nurse gave B.—Shitty—a flat look.

‘You were quiet at dinner.  Wanted to check in.  Didn’t think you’d want me to be obvious about it, but you asked.’

‘Eh.  At least you’re the observant one, rather’n Shorter and his ilk.’  Nurse grimaced, took a deep breath.  ‘Thanks.  By the way.  For stepping in about my nickname.’

‘Not much of a nickname if it’s just your surname, but it was the best I could do on the fly.  Gotta work on my skills there.’

‘I can imagine it now,’ Nurse deadpanned, ‘Shitty Knight, hockey godfather.  Bestowing winning nicknames on players and fans alike.  Getting fawned over by parents who want their kids to play.  You bask in the attention, picking and choosing who gets the blessing of a Shitty nickname.’

‘Hah.  I like the sound of your story, dude.  Tell me more.  And not a problem, incidentally.’

‘Don’t you have work?’

‘You kicking me out?’

‘Hardly.  But I do have work, and need to go change my laundry.  Don’t wanna kick you out, but if we’re both trying to be productive, then maybe I’d get at least something done.’

‘Back in a sec, then.’

Nurse got his quarters.  They both left Nurse’s room, which Nurse locked behind him.  While Shitty slouched back toward his single around the corner at the end of the hall, out of Nurse’s sight, Nurse took the stairs down to the basement to change his laundry.  When he returned some ten minutes later, Shitty was lounging in the hallway against his door, book open in one hand and scrawling notes with the other.  He stopped, as if Shitty were an obstacle to getting back into his room.  His motion—or lack of it—caught Shitty’s attention.  He looked up from his book and grinned at Nurse, like there was nothing odd or unexpected about his return.

‘How many loads, dude?  Like, six?’

‘There’re only four washers and dryers, Shitty.  Three.  Had to empty one of the dryers of someone else’s clean clothes, so it took a sec.’

Shitty rolled to his feet so Nurse could unlock his door.

‘What, did you fold their laundry for them?’ 

They entered, Nurse resuming his place at his desk without answering.  There was no good answer to Shitty’s mocking tone.

‘Oh shit, you did.  That’s fuckin nice of you, man.’

Nurse raised an eyebrow at him, not daring to react more.  ‘You salt your speech with bro-isms, Shitty,’ he said slowly, cautiously, ‘but it’s like it’s a deliberate choice rather than a natural inclination or habit or whatever.  Why?’

Shitty grinned, flopping down on Nurse’s bed and accepting the abrupt change in topic.  ‘I knew you had potential.  Saw right through my camouflage.’

‘What?’

‘It’s performative, well, _bro_.  Andover’s a kinda cookie-cutter place, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.  Things that don’t fit—people who don’t fit—don’t get the best of treatment unless there’s a box to put ‘em in.  I come from the same awful WASPy background as a lot of the tools in our classes, but I happen to hate that culture, such as it were.  And I want to undermine it.  But I still have to get by.  So I steal their language and use it as cover—’ with that, Shitty tucks himself into Nurse’s bed ‘—like so.  They hear me talk, but they hear their signifiers at least as much as they hear my message, so at least part of it gets through.  And I, despite being a modestly talented forward, am well treated in our most heteronormative of sports.’

Nurse was stunned.  Really, he had about six different reactions warring for primacy, so not reacting seemed the safest.

‘You alright, dude?  You look like you’re trying to sink into yourself and not explode at the same time.’

‘Was that speech an excuse to get into my bed?’

‘Not intentionally..?  I mean, you’ve got mad comfy covers here, Nurse.  But mostly that was a demonstrative.  The purpose of that speech was to let you know not everyone on the team’s like Shorter or our, uh, glorious captain.’

‘Huh.  Cool.’

* * *

‘Billy, what are we going to do with you?’  Mrs. Tusler sighed from behind her desk.  ‘I have to call your mother about this, you know.’

‘I don’t know.’  He snuffled, and when that didn’t work, swiped at his nose with a fist.  Tears still leaked from his eyes, a mixture of sadness, fear, and residual fury.  Guilt was a new emotion, and he didn’t understand it, or really know the word yet.

‘Do you want to tell me why you hit Timothy like that?’

Billy had learned his lessons early and hard.  Defending yourself generally made things worse.  Crying was bad for many complicated reasons, mostly because it apparently invited further harm.  Wanting things was something to be done privately, particularly when there was no hope of turning wanting into getting.  Beating the everloving hell out of another kid was acceptable if the other kid started it or was bullying someone else.

Timothy, as it happened, had only been bullying Billy, which was apparently no excuse.  New lesson: standing up for yourself just invites further trouble.

‘He was saying mean things.’  He sounded petulant, although he didn’t know it.  Just that he wouldn’t be able to convince Mrs. Tusler that he hadn’t started it.

‘Sticks and stones, Billy.  You know you shouldn’t hurt people just because they say mean things.  Plus, you’re so much bigger than he is—you could have seriously hurt him.’

Billy stayed in her office through the afternoon.  As punishments went, it was really pretty nice—the adults didn’t understand, but they were polite to him and let him read quietly on his own without bothering him.  They let him settle back into himself, ignored his squirming as he let himself be comfortable again.  He hoped it’d be Ma who picked him up.  Then he remembered it was Thursday, her day to cover after school things. 

Ryan, the second of his brothers and an eighth grader, came by the office to pick him up when classes ended.  Billy didn’t know to notice yet, but Ryan was already drifting off from the rest of the family.  He was the nicer of his brothers, by far, and Billy fair idolized him.  He was quiet, and kind, and was fine with Billy being quiet or loud or however he wanted to be.

‘You okay, Billy?’

‘I’m gonna be in trouble.’

‘Yeah, probably.  Did you start it?’

‘Only the hitting.  He was saying mean things about how our clothes are bad.  About how Dad doesn’t have a good job and that makes us bad.  Why does that make us bad?’

Ryan didn’t answer, just scooped his little brother up into a big hug.

‘You want a piggy back ride?  I think I can get us all the way home if you wear my backpack.  I can help you explain it to Mom.’

‘Thanks, Ryan.’  He scrabbled up onto his brother’s back when Ryan knelt, smiling for the first time since the fight.

They made their way slowly home.  Ryan asked how the rest of Billy’s day went; Billy asked what middle school was like.  He got stories in return, of harder math and shop class and boys talking about girls, although Ryan would occasionally hesitate on that last topic.  Ryan mentioned he had some of his lunch money left, and did Billy want some ice cream?

Of course he did, even though he felt like he didn’t deserve it.  So Ryan got him some—fudge ripple to Ryan’s blueberry.  By the time they got home, their parents had already gotten a call from the school, so ice cream had perhaps been a bad idea, even if they’d destroyed all the evidence.

‘Billy.  Care to explain why I got a call from Mrs. Tusler earlier?’

‘I got in a fight.’

‘It didn’t sound like much of a fight—she said you just jumped on him and socked him a couple times before you got pulled off.  How many times have I told you we don’t do that?’

‘Lots.’                                                                                     

‘Mom, Billy told me that the kid he beat up was saying mean things about his clothes and about Dad at recess, so it’s not like this was out of the blue.’

‘That’s not a good excuse, Ryan.  Billy, you have to find better ways to stand up for yourself.  Let your actions show that you’re a good person no matter what anyone says.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nursey hooks up; assumptions are made. Dex asks a canon question; further assumptions are made. Things go poorly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The latter half of Dex's backstory section contains a couple different flavors of homophobia--anyone for whom that's an issue can skip it with the knowledge that James is not the nicest of people (in case that weren't already clear).

Dex didn’t see it before practice, because Nursey was late to practice.  Later, even, than normal.  And he arrived smirking.  Dex didn’t say anything, though, because there was no point to it.  Warm-ups were nearly over, and they moved on to drills.  Dex waved Nursey over to join him.  Got a nod in response.

Something had changed—more than just Dex foregoing an opportunity to chirp the shit out of Nursey.  Their passes connected.  Nursey seemed to know where he is before he was there, and it was like magic.  Well, not magic—hockey magic was weird and usually awkward, if there was any truth to any of those stories.  Dex didn’t think he played any differently than normal, but who knew.

It was a good practice all around, but the sudden definitely-not-magic had Dex thinking a bit too hard.  Otherwise, the only noteworthy event was that Bitty’d skated through a couple gentle checks from Nursey and one somewhat less gentle one—still thoroughly telegraphed—from Shitty. 

It turned out, as they’re changing to shower, that Nursey had gotten laid.  Someone had marked him up thoroughly: lines of hickeys ran down the muscles alongside his spine in parallel.  There were wolf-whistles and demands for deets as the team took note. 

Maybe that could explain their chemistry?  But that made no sense.

The circus carried over to team breakfast, where Nursey claimed his usual seat as close to Dex as he could get, while Dex tried at least half-seriously to engineer it so that they didn’t actually sit next to each other.  Today he lost that battle.  Nursey’s drinks—milk, a mix of lemonade and cranberry juice apparently perfected at Andover, and a glass of water—sloshed as he set his tray down, but none spilled today.

‘DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETS, Nurse,’ Shitty pleaded as he set up across from them.  Lardo rolled her eyes, but smiled.

‘None for you, Shitty, nor for the rest of you.’

‘Nurrrrrrrrse.  I had to listen to you all through Andover.  You told me about everyone you wanted or had while you were there.  Why you gotta freeze me out now?’

‘Cuz his secret’s not mine to tell, Shits.’  It came out oddly gentle, and the silence that followed was fragile.

Dex, of course, was screaming internally.  He did not faceplant into his oatmeal.  He studiously failed to react at all—and worked so hard at it that he missed the celebration.  Of course, silence during any post-coming-out round of congratulations and celebratory got-your-backs and comments about bravery will be read as dickish and at least a touch homophobic, but Dex was pretty sure that’s what much of the team thought of him anyway, so he let it be.  Nodded at Nursey in a too-little, too-late attempt at solidarity before they all headed out.

Classes passed in a daze of Dex trying to reorder his understanding of the world, particularly the part about it being fair in any way.  He spent most of his lunch screaming into a pillow.  In transit between classes, Dex was pretty sure that anyone within five feet could hear AFI raging into his ears.

After class, Dex opened his phone back up to find an announcement from Bitty that there were three pies cooling in the kitchen—first come, first served.  He hadn’t, given breakfast, exactly planned to hang around the Haus today, but free food was free food.  He packed his bag and managed—barely—to keep himself to a technical walking pace.  He bounded up the front steps of the Haus, noticing a loose board he might want to look at sometime if he came over to the Haus enough.  Shitty and Lardo waved at him as he passed, not looking up from their conversation.

Inside, Nursey and Chowder were already at the kitchen table, books out, shoving pie into their mouths.  Chowder was also texting madly—probably Farmer.  Nursey’s un-inked arm was half-full of the day’s poetry.  Bitty was at the counter, doing something involving butter and… puff pastry?  There were three partly-ravaged pies beside him, and a small stack of plates.

‘Apple cranberry, lemon meringue, and pumpkin bourbon, Dex.  How was class?’

‘Eh.  Fine.  I’m not prepared to say that lin al is fascinating.  Useful, though.’

‘A stepping stone to other classes, then?’

‘Something like that.  Pre-req for a bunch of the math for engineering and a couple of the cool AI-focal CS classes.’

Nursey looked up from his book.

‘Gonna build us a Skynet, Dexy?’

‘If I do, I’ll make sure you’re its first target when it wakes up, Nurse.’

‘Awwww, so nice of you to think of me, even when you’re destroying the world.’

‘Not the world, Nurse.  Just you.’  Dex couldn’t actually tell how annoyed he sounded.  Was this actually fine?  Casually offering hypothetical death threats?

Dex collected a slice of apple and took a seat with the other Frogs.  He fired up his laptop and opened up his CS problem set.  If he could get far enough to get stuck, he was pretty sure he could get Chowder to look it over and show him where he’d fucked it up.

‘What’re you making, Bitty?’

‘Dinner!  Spanakopita and Greek salad.’

‘Spana…kopita.  What’s that?’

‘It’s a savory pastry, mainly involving a stuffing of spinach and onions.  Sometimes feta cheese.  It’s Greek.’  Nurse spoke slowly, as if Dex’s lack of exposure to things rendered him stupid.  Dex blushed, wishing more than ever that his embarrassment didn’t show so easily.

‘Hence the salad.  What I’m hearing, though, is that you’re trying to make Jack eat puff pastry for dinner.’

‘When you say it like that, Chowder, it sounds like I’m doing something bad.’

Bitty’s smirk was lost in the clatter of Ransom and Holster barreling into the kitchen.  Holster claimed the last quarter of the apple, plate and all, while Ransom cut himself a large slice of the pumpkin bourbon.

‘So.  My dearest, darlingest froggies.’

‘You might have noticed, if you checked your mail anytime today.’

‘That you got a strange missive within it.’

‘Boys, completing each other’s sentences is bad enough.  Did y’all _practice_ this speech?  Or have you actually formed a hive mind?’

The defensive pair turned as one to grin at Bitty and waggle their eyebrows wordlessly before returning their focus to the Frogs.

‘Namely, a screw that was labeled a screw.’

‘Now, you might have found this confusing,’

‘But we—’ Holster pointed first at Ransom, then at himself, ‘are here to enlighten, assist, and match-make.’

‘By the twin powers of facebook and excel.  Nursey, bro.  What’s your type?’

‘Strong, smart, and funny.  Interesting, interested, and not afraid to stand up for themselves.  Gender’s… whatever.  Although…’

Dex groaned, hopefully just a variation on his internal screaming rather than an actual, audible groan.  How could Nursey just be so… casual about that?  I mean, it kinda made sense that being out wouldn’t make him nervous.  Nursey was effortlessly smooth in all situations except walking.  Nursey-envy, apparently, was now just another voice in the chorus of Dex’s internal screaming—which, in turn, made Dex want to scream. 

‘Dex, man, you with us?’  Ransom and Holster were both glaring at him, so he wasn’t honestly sure which one had spoken.  Dex swallowed.

‘Uh, yeah.  Sorry.’

No one probably believed him, but no one called him out.  So it was mostly fine.  Now, just like earlier, wasn’t the proper time to reorder his world, or to add ‘able to casually be out to the team like it’s not a thing’ to the list of reasons he envied Nursey.

‘So, you gonna tell us your type, then, bro?’

‘I’m thinking of just going stag.  No need to set me up, guys.’

‘But Dex,’ Ransom said, ‘we gotta look out for you, dude.’

‘Aren’t our roommates supposed to be setting us up?’

‘Bro, I’m hurt.  I thought we had a relationship built on trust.’  Holster flopped back in his chair like it were a fainting couch, dramatic hand gestures and all.

‘No, I—’

‘Dexy, weren’t you complaining yesterday about how he’d only done laundry once so far this term?  You want to trust that dude with something like _this_?’

‘Boys,’ the warning tone in Bitty’s voice was clear as he broke in from the counter, where he was now folding and cutting out puff pastry squares—a process involving more butter than he should ever admit to Jack—‘if Dex doesn’t want to be set up, we can let him just be.  Or do I need to explain to Shitty that you’re pressuring him to date or hook up or whatever?’

Holster paled; Ransom shook his head frantically.

‘Uh, no Bits.  You’re absolutely right.’

‘Yeah, sorry Dex.  If you change your mind, excel and I—and Holster—are ready to help.’

‘Uh, yeah.  Thanks.  I suppose,’ Dex said to the elder D-men’s retreating backs as they decamped to the biohazard couch.

‘Don’t worry, Dex.  They do that every year.  If they bug you again, tell me and I’ll cut off their pie.’

‘Thanks, Bitty.  Hopefully it won’t come to that.’

‘So that guy you mentioned from your class, Nursey,’ Chowder spoke up, having abandoned his work sometime during R&H’s Winter Screw Set-up Spectacular, ‘do you know if he likes dudes, or is it wishful thinking?  Like, have you gotten any signals or has he flirted with you, or..?’

‘Nothing big or obvious, but I know he’s single.  He plays the pronoun game some, or else he’s got a lot of enby friends.’  Nursey’s eyes were bright—bottle green, Dex thought—as he talked about this guy.

‘Wait—who’s this dude?’

‘Oh, _now_ you’re interested, Poindexter?  A cute guy in Brit Lit.  I think we can all safely assume that this isn’t a conversation you’ll be useful in.’

Dex clamped down on any of his possible responses, because they would all reveal too much.  Let Nursey win this one, too.

‘Anyway,’ Nursey continued like Dex weren’t there, like he hadn’t spoken at all, ‘he’s at least Family-adjacent, I’d guess, if not actually some sort of queer.  But, you know.  Twenty-five percent chance, minimum.’

‘So that one-in-four thing about Samwell, it’s not, like, actually true, is it?’  Dex knew he’d fucked up when he saw how fast the clouds rolled over Nursey’s eyes.  ‘What?’ 

‘Poindexter.  You don’t think, do you, that a campus as reputedly accepting as Samwell is gonna have a far higher proportion of non-straight folks?’  Nursey’s voice had lost any trace of its playful lilt, saying that, and his eyes had dimmed to an angry grey-green—the color of waterspout warnings.

‘C’mon, Dex.  Think of it mathematically—a fair minimum for the LGBT population in the US is 4-6%.  Maybe as far upward as 10%, if you go by Kinsey, but… meh.  Call it 8.  Now imagine that gay people,’ Chowder looked around to see who was paying attention, ‘gay here being used as an umbrella term even if it really shouldn’t be?  Anyway, imagine that they would prefer to go somewhere that they’d be safe and accepted at a minimum, or even better included and celebrated.  Doesn’t a three-times-average rate seem reasonable in that situation?’  Chowder’s eyes were pleading— _just smile and nod and don’t fuck this up for once_.

‘Yeah.’  Fuck.  They all thought he was just acting out his rural—fuck, he wasn’t even from _rural_ Maine, but they didn’t get that—Maine prejudices.  All he asked was for information.

‘You hearing us, Dex?  Or are you tuning us out like you have all day?’

‘I’m sure he can hear us, Nursey—look at his ears.’  Chowder’s chirp delivery was almost as deadpan as Jack or Lardo’s.  Dex couldn’t be sure if this was a chirp, though.

‘Yo, chill, C.  That’s how he was born.’

Dex pinked at the Chowder’s dig, and flushed at Nursey’s response.  He knew he wasn’t helping anyone here.  It was time to go.

He packed up without a word.  He thought he heard someone—Nursey?—ask why he never defends himself.  As if that were a failing.  Dex apologized to Shitty as he narrowly avoided plowing into him on his way out.

‘Whoa—you’re leaving, Dex?  You’ll miss out on spanakopita, brah.  And seeing whether Bits can make Jack eat puff pastry for dinner!’

‘Don’t wanna fuck up the team dynamic with my presence.  See you at practice.’ 

Dex ignored Shitty’s gawping and missed Lardo’s eyebrow arcing upward.  As he shuffled down frat row, he was proud—to the extent he could be both proud and dejected—of how even he kept his tone.

The walk back to his dorm was long.  He turned off his phone so he wouldn’t hear the group chat updating or see whatever further digs came his way.  So he wouldn’t be tempted to respond and further fuck things up.

Dex wondered when he’d learned to read the weather in Nursey’s eyes.

* * *

Billy hadn’t thought the fight was that bad, even though the kids were a lot older than him.  He couldn’t hear what James had snarled as he punched the other kid—smaller, less popular, maybe only a sophomore, and looking incredibly tough as he stood up to James.  Just punched him a couple times and then walked off to class.  Somehow that was bad enough to merit a week’s suspension, but Billy hadn’t really understood why.  Just that James was wicked angry about it.

His parents took James aside in the kitchen when they got home from school.  Billy was told to go do his homework, but he didn’t.  Instead, he hovered out of sight around the corner in the transitional space between the kitchen, the living room and the stairs to the second floor.  When Ryan, walking by upstairs from Siobhan’s room to his own, shot him a questioning look, Billy put his finger to his lips and jerked his head in a ‘move along’ motion.  Ryan smiled and shook his head—and tiptoed silently down the stairs to stand by Billy and eavesdrop with him, one arm wrapped around his small shoulders.

‘It’s not like you to get into fights, James.  That’s normally Billy’s problem.  I raised you better than that.  You don’t want this on your record when you’re looking for jobs.’

‘How did this start, James?’  Dad was probably staring at James, his unspoken part in the conversation at least as intimidating as being Ma’s sole focus.

‘He wouldn’t get out of the way when I told him to move.’

‘That’s worse than Billy’s excuses, when he bothers to make them.  Try again, James.’

Ryan rubbed small circles into Billy’s suddenly tense shoulders, solidarity in listening to what they oughtn’t.

‘He was looking at me funny.’

‘That’s even wor—’

‘He’s queer, okay?  He was looking at me wrong and wouldn’t get out of my way so I put the filthy fucker in his place.’

Ryan’s hand clenched before releasing immediately.  Billy could feel the tension in his brother’s hand, unable to unclench or fully close up.  He looked up at Ryan with a question in his eyes.  Ryan, pale—more pale even than usual—with zits among his freckles, just shook his head.  _Now wasn’t the time_.

‘Huh.’                                   

‘That’s an understandable reaction, James, but it’s still not right.  We don’t, as I have to remind your brother often, hit people.  If someone… makes advances at you, tell an adult and it will get settled properly.’

‘Plus.  You might catch something, son.  Don’t know where he’s been.’

Ryan vanished upstairs; Billy only knew because he could feel a fading warmth where his hand had been holding Billy’s a moment before.

* * *

It happened on a Tuesday, in early spring of his Lower-Mid year. 

Nurse would always remember this as an emergent fact, not as useful context.  The useful context was chapel, and his having skipped it, and the science building’s roof being chilly but not uncomfortably so.  Chapel—non-denominational aside from it being a literal chapel built by and for Christians with a great big crucifix featuring the late, great JHC—was only mandatory on Tuesdays.

Tuesdays were a mad dash.  Sometimes there were morning practices (on days when Wednesday didn’t bring a game after its half-day of classes).  Even without, it was a long day: classes—Latin, AP US, double chem (necessarily a lab day), and his Arabic independent study, all without a free period in sight—twenty minutes to dick around and madly dash off to Gurry for afternoon practice, which ended—if Campbell didn’t make them skate punishment laps or, worse, bag skate—half an hour before chapel, where even the most formal athletes showed up shower-damp in polos with ties on as if that made them formal or fashionable.  Then sit-down dinner in Paresky and study hall and lights out an hour later and that was your day.

Nurse had skipped chapel. 

There was this little stairwell—metal, spiraling up to apparently nowhere—that people ignored, on the path from West Campus up to the science building.  It led up to a small space, hard to categorize as anything in particular because it wasn’t anything formal and it wasn’t quite the roof of the science building, there being a half wall of the same oversized red brick as the rest of the science building separating it.  Some of the dorms had views that looked down on the little not-a-space, but it was well and truly hidden from anyone below—or anyone looking out from the science building, if you were hiding behind the half wall.

Like Nurse had been with Kevin.

Kevin, a theater kid who got all sorts of shit for being unapologetically himself—for being self-evidently queer and enjoying the hell out of it.  He treated everyone as he felt they deserved, based largely on how they treated him.  He flirted shamelessly, and only some of the time as a defense mechanism to make potential bullies feel uncomfortable.  He was also, Nurse thought, ridiculously pretty—slightly taller than Nurse with dark hair as untamed as the rest of him, pale and freckled, with eyes like the blue in Nurse's mother’s Arita porcelain.  He was headed to RISD in the fall.

Nurse had met Kevin in the theater, naturally.  They’d had a couple classes together, just incidentally, but hadn’t actually talked until Nurse had joined the techies for the fall musical and then been declared such a tech liability that he'd been fired from anything related to set building.  He was granted the role of the sound op—someone had, somehow, convinced Mr. Berryman to allow high schoolers to perform Bat Boy—so all he had to do was construct some variations on thunder out of a handful of stock files in the sound editor and hit the enormous GO button on the relevant cues.

And listen to Kevin sass everyone over headset like it was his job.

It was, in fact, his job as the stage manager to keep everyone in line and prod the techies with cues as necessary.  The sass was just a bonus.  Nurse would snark back at him and occasionally quote suggestive poetry, and they developed an easy rapport built on competence, respect, and banter.

Theater kids are known to be touchy in all senses.  They hug and they fist bump and they gesticulate and they have snits.  Nurse knew all this from prior experience.  Kevin’s touches were more… deliberate.  Hugs lasted a beat too long; particularly good chirps were punctuated with a boop on the nose; occasionally Nurse was used as a demonstrative in Kevin’s stories, being posed and talked around for the sake of greater clarity or drama or whatever.

That was the other thing—Kevin refused, unique among the people he knew at Andover, faculty and students alike, to call Nurse solely by his surname-cum-hockeynym.  No, he was always Derek.  It did nothing to diminish Nurse’s crush on him.

So, when Kevin pulled him aside into an empty room in the English wing as he was heading toward lunch that Tuesday, to ask him if, maybe, he might possibly be interested in skipping chapel that evening and meet up in the science building’s not-a-space at the top of the staircase, Nurse agreed before Kevin finished asking his question.

He smiled like an idiot for the rest of the day.

Kevin was excellent at kissing, in Nurse’s deeply inexperienced estimation.  They timed their tryst so they could sidle in to sit-down along with the crush of other students coming from more official activities.

Unlike most Tuesdays, though, no one was talking about whatever lesson had been on tap in chapel that evening.  Instead, discussions focused on some sort of pictures.  Curious, Nurse pulled his phone out—as long as he wasn’t _in_ Paresky, it was chill—and checked the Andover students’ private facebook group.  It was currently blowing up, because someone who had _also_ skipped chapel had taken pictures of him making out with Kevin in the rooftop not-a-space—and had posted them to the group.


	4. Chapter 4

The team had won their game against Northeastern the night before, but lost two games earlier in the week.  That night’s kegster wasn’t going to be purely celebratory, except perhaps in recognition of a grueling week survived.  Nursey had taken a rough check in one of the earlier games, and woke up still sore.

Soreness was one of the few feelings his mind made available that morning: his mouth felt like sandpaper and even the thought of coffee—strong, sweet, bitter—did little to lure him from bed.  _Today is brought to you by the word anhedonia, the letter Y, and the number 3,_ _in_ _which bad things come_.  His phone beeped, and responsibility or the thought that someone wanted to talk to him offered the kick that ordinary pleasures couldn’t.

Nursey got out of bed.  Dragged the covers closed behind him out of habit and already-waning determination.  Dry swallowed his meds, then went to find his water bottle to actually drink something like he was supposed to. 

Today was one of those days where making his bed was extra important, so that he wouldn’t look at his phone, decide things weren’t worth the effort, and immediately fall back into it.  Nursey’d always thought it a habit—learned somewhere along the line in a parade of therapists—that stuck out in his life, a bit of organization that didn’t belong in his otherwise cluttered room.

 **Jaws:** Ransom said we needed to go to murder S&S today.  He needs peanut butter and more spaghetti.  Said Bitty’s gonna let him make his black hole pasta.  
**Me:** When’s good?  
**Jaws:** I’m off to lunch with Caitlin(!!!!!!) in a bit.  So, um, after that?  
**Me:** Excited much?  
**Jaws:** Hella excited.  
**Me:** Good.  Have fun.  Give yourself time to enjoy lunch and whatever.  Three for the murder run?  
**Jaws:** Yeah!  That’s a good thought.  Thanks.  See you then!!

Nursey looked at the clock: eleven fifteen.  Might as well get on with what morning remained.  Maybe Annie’s would taste like something.  He showered, shaved, got dressed, and headed off to caffeinate.  He showered and dressed and headed out.

The walk was—surprisingly—pleasant.  Nursey was only a little stuck in his head, still present enough to smile at the start of fall color.  He picked a leaf up off the ground and tucked it behind his ear—it had fallen mid-fade from green to red.  He might crunch it up later if he played with his hair, but it’d serve to ground him again when he did, if so.

There wasn’t much of a line at Annie’s, even though the tables were pretty crowded.  He ordered a dirty chai, and to his relief most of the spices actually registered on his tongue.  He looked around the café for a place to sit and saw Dex hunched over his laptop at a table in the corner, the sleeves to his flannel pushed up rather than rolled.  Since the other tables were all occupied by people he didn’t know, Nursey started over toward his defensive partner.

‘Hey.’

‘Uh, hey.’

‘This seat free?’

Dex sighed.  ‘Yeah.  Just, _please_ keep your drink off my stuff.’

‘I’ve no plans to do anything but drink it.’

‘You didn’t plan to dump your cereal on me, right?’

Nursey put his drink down on the table, ignoring Dex’s raised eyebrow.  He wasn’t sure this seat was worth the price of admission, but backing out now meant Dex would… win?  Or something.

‘There.  It’s seated.  I’m gonna sit down, and then you’ll be completely safe.’

‘Cool.’

Dex went back to working on whatever was on his laptop.  Nursey pulled out a pen and his current moleskine.  He opened it to a new page, smoothing his hands unnecessarily over the page—habit, still, or superstition left over from when he wrote on loose-leaf or shitty exercise workbooks.  Took a drink, felt the caffeine filter into him, at least psychologically.  Even if he couldn’t quite manage to be a human in full color today, he was at least faking it well enough to fool Dex.  Somehow that was important.

A start.  Theme, too.  Maybe he’d try a structure, at least in syllable counts.  Even so, he positioned himself and his moleskine so Dex would have to move pretty obviously in order to get even a vaguely useful look at what he was writing.  Not that he’d care.  Still a good habit.

The world has lost its color: it’s monochrome and grey  
Or that blue of ice or green of aquarium glass  
Encasing protecting smothering stifling sealing—  
I’ve packed all my feelings away 

Words were slow to come, and Nursey wasn’t honestly sure whether the syllable counting was going to be worth it in the end—but he’d decided what he was doing, and he’d be damned if he went back on that now.

When the thaw comes—or hotter fire, if in glass I’m girt—  
I’ll unpack each one in turn, like trying on old clothes  
Ignore the itch, fiber on skin, hope the seams don’t chafe  
See if any of them still fit

 _Now to pick a color and negate it.  Keep going with the glass—if it’s thick enough it’s green, right?_

Green is not spring; it’s not plants; there’s no emerging life  
It’s envy or distance or the shade of a wave  
Uprising to dash my middling craft on its critiques:  
Remember: my words are in vain 

_That was… a bit on the nose, maybe,_ Nursey’s self-critique continued.  _Oceans and blue would be the easy tie-in for the next quatrain._

Blue, then.  Not sky nor freedom nor even mere sadness  
It’s calving icebergs and the ocean between people  
It’s the fluorescent glow of a solitary night  
My words don’t mean the same to you 

_Who’s the ‘you’ here?  Anyone would do.  Few enough people sustain themselves on verse.  Red’s the last primary color, so… what to do with that?  Circle back to the second stanza’s fire reference?  Obvious, but at least it tied things together and kept it elemental._

Red’s not in my pigmentary vocabulary  
There’s no warmth here, no fire or love or even anger  
Can’t allow tenderness to undermine the chill  
This skin of ice keeps me together 

Nursey’s phone beeped, and he abruptly came up for air.  Having done that, Nursey ran out of steam.  The remaining options were, what—black, white, grey—yellow?  Any of those took too much energy to consider.  The last line was too true, but also had a syllable too many, at least if his self-imposed constraint mattered.  Dex was still typing away, apparently unaware of all of this.  Nursey checked his phone.

 **Jaws:** Murder run soon?  I’m back from lunch—it was hella good!  Thanks for the rec!  
**Me:** It’s chill.  Glad you had a good time.  Meet at the Haus in, like, ten?  We can go from there.  
**Jaws:** Sounds good!  =P

Nursey put his notebook away and gathered his stuff—jacket, bag, half-full cup of coffee—and stood.  Dex looked up from his laptop, and raised his eyebrow again—differently, though (so expressive, those burning brows).  Questioning, this time.

‘Gotta go meet Chow to run to Murder Stop & Shop.  Ransom and Holster are demonstrating the need for even their reduced sriracha shelf, which apparently involves glass noodles, peanut butter, and garlic.  We were deputized.’

‘Gotcha.’  Dex blushed, for reasons Nursey couldn’t begin to guess.  He looked like he was gonna say something, but instead took a breath, as if to steady himself.  ‘You… you have fun with that.  Say hi to Chowder.’

‘Chyeah, man.  It’ll be chill.’

Dex rolled his eyes—the standard desired response—and returned immediately to his computer.

‘Well.  See you, then.’

‘Ayup.’

Well, _that_ was stiltedly civil, Nursey thought as he left Annie’s.  No threats of violence or anything, even.  Hell, no actual violence.  That wasn’t really that common, though.  Chowder’d only had to intervene… twice (so far)?  One of those shouldn’t count, though, probably.  No one’s fault that Nursey’d lost his balance.

That train of thought carried him to the Haus.  Chowder was sitting on the porch bench, swinging his legs back and forth—to the side, so they wouldn’t scrape on the porch itself.  It looked like he was wearing at least two layers under his Sharks hoodie.  Uncombed black hair stuck haphazardly out from the hood, and the goalie’s face lit up in a metallic grin when he spotted Nursey coming up the walk.  He hopped off the bench and barreled into him, an impact somewhere between a tackle and a hug.

‘Hi!’

‘Hey Chowder.’

‘You ready to go?’

‘Yeah.  You got a list or anything?  Does Bits need more butter?’

‘No list.  Just peanut butter and glass noodles, at least for Ransom and Holster.  Bitty would probably appreciate some butter, don’t you think, though?’

They started walking, and Nursey found himself buoyed by Chowder’s relentless and infectious enthusiasm for, well, basically everything.

‘Yeah, we can get a pound of butter—unsweetened, or Bitty would kill us.  No reason to not.’

‘You okay, Nursey?  You seem kinda out of it.’

‘Eh.  Slow day.’  Probably not enough context there for Chowder.  He paused to think of a plausible reason to be a bit bleh, without actually discussing the neurochemical root cause.  ‘Had to sit by Dex at Annie’s earlier—I got some pretty good poetry written, I think, while he was busily ignoring me.  You’d be proud, though: in exchanging no more than three sentences with each other, we managed to not scream or fight or anything.’

‘Hey!  That’s progress!’  Chowder’s smile was more hopeful than ecstatic.

‘How was lunch with Caitlin?’

Most of the rest of the walk to Murder Stop & Shop passed in Chowder’s happy oversharing and overanalysis of lunch with his delightful girlfriend.  Even though it was a bit farther from the Haus than Samwell’s other Stop & Shop, the Frogs had been warned off the other.  Chowder ran out of conversational steam as they were checking out—they’d also decided to get flour for Bitty, but agreed that he probably didn’t trust them to pick out produce for him.  They walked back in companionable silence, and Nursey was secretly thrilled to not have to spend more energy talking—even though that immediately made him feel guilty about not wanting to talk to one of his best friends.

They returned to the Haus, to heroic acclaim from Holster and Ransom and quieter thanks from Bitty on the baking supplies.  Nursey smiled and nodded and wandered off as the junior defensemen started their best impression of Epic Mealtime, flopping down on the green couch and eventually crashing out.

Some time later, Nursey came to, a pillow shoved under his head and a blanket draped over him.  He could smell both coffee and something savory—probably the peanut-sauce abomination he and Chowder had been sent to get supplies for.  He stirred, and the blanket fell off.  He sat up and noticed that there was a thermos of coffee on the table in front of him with a post-it note on it bearing a smiley face.  Probably Chowder.  He took a sip.  Stretched.  Patted his hair down—it seemed like it wasn’t too unruly, even after an impromptu nap.

Conversation flowed in the kitchen as he walked in—Ransom and Holster were explaining the nature of their dinner offering to Bitty—noodles with a peanut-butter-sriracha sauce involving garlic and cilantro and other things that they insisted be called The Black Hole.  Bitty declared that, even if it was delicious, it didn’t justify an entire cupboard of ‘cock sauce.’

‘Really, Bits?  Cock sauce?’

‘It’s got a rooster right on the bottle!’

Nursey took the bowl of noodle-y goodness when one was thrust into his hands, nodded his thanks, and started eating.  He let the conversation wash over him, absorbing the solace and reassurance of good company as surely as he took in the heat and spice of the food.  Even though he was in the middle of friends, old habits died hard and Nursey shoveled the food into his mouth.  He was mostly finished with his first bowl of noodles when Jack came downstairs—he commented approvingly on the protein content of the food.  He’d finished entirely by the time Dex clattered into the kitchen, muttering about the state of the porch.

‘What’s this?’  The redhead dubiously eyed the bowl Ransom handed him as he walked into the kitchen.  He was dressed nicely—a compromise between his tightest clothes and what Nursey imagined he’d wear to church.  His hair was still wet, and obviously freshly combed.

‘Dinner!’  Holster stated.

‘The Black Hole.  Gotta lay down a nice layer to absorb the booze tonight.  Shitty’s made tub juice.’

‘Tub juice.’  Dex looked as unsure of that as he did at the pasta on his fork.

‘Yeah, man—variously known elsewhere as bad decision lubricant, fuck me punch, five-hour blackout, and liquid amnesia, it will offer you an excellent night the likes of which you’re sure to regret.  Just remember that I will straight up murder anyone who takes advantage of someone who’s drunk at a kegster.’  Shitty switching modes from party-brah to social-justice rogue always carried a certain amount of whiplash.

‘Uh, sure.  Sounds thrilling.  And dangerous.’  Dex sat down and finally took a bite of his dinner.  Chewed thoughtfully.  Nodded.  ‘Surprisingly good.  Fucking dense.’

‘That’s the beauty of it, young Dexter!  Lines your stomach with a squishy yet absorbent layer to keep the booze from your system for just a bit longer, allowing you to party all the harder.’

‘I’m pretty sure you know it doesn’t work like that, Ransom.’

Nursey got another bowl of pasta, and noticed Shitty’s eyes on him.  He shot his old friend a questioning look, and got an unsubtly raised eyebrow in return.  That got Lardo’s attention.  She pulled a chair up beside him.

‘You’re unusually quiet, dude.’

‘Food.  Ongoing conversation.  I’m content to sit back and watch this drama play out, you know?’

A thinner, sharper eyebrow-raise.  Shitty knew him too well, and Lardo could probably just see through him.  Damn.  Lardo straightened her legs in order to deposit them into Nursey’s lap and went back to eating, daring comment.  Nurse worked on his second bowl of pasta.

‘You’re my partner for the first game of pong.  Just so you know, Nurse.’

Once everyone had eaten, Bitty and Dex collected the dishes and started washing.  Ollie and Wicks moved furniture to the edges of the living room while Lardo got onto Shitty’s shoulders to put up lights.  Jack supervised.  Ransom had Nursey help him bring out the pong table.

‘You planning to pick up tonight, brah?’

‘Not banking on it.  Been a long day—not really feeling anything to make it longer.  Also, Lardo’s declared I’m her pong partner, so that might make for a rough night.’

‘Only if you’re bad.’

‘I am bad.  And we all know that Lardo uses her pong partners like meat shields to take up the extra booze we incur by not being as good shots.’

‘You shut your mouth, Nurse.  I will not have you badmouthing our resident pong champion.’  Shitty was lugging a cooler down the stairs to the sounds of rumbling ice and sloshing liquid.  Tub juice.

‘Oh, sure thing, Shits.  But how am I to drink your tub juice with my mouth closed?’

‘I’d suggest a straw, brah.’  Shitty giggled at his rhyming.

Chowder and Caitlin—Farmer, apparently—arrived just as the kegster officially started.  Introductions were made, with Chowder positively glowing in the attention and approval, and Farmer waved at Dex.  Nursey wondered whether they knew each other beyond the piggy-back race that introduced the overly happy couple.

The first pong challengers appeared moments into the party—one of Lardo’s art friends and her little brother, a dude on the soccer team.  Nursey lost track of the conversation during introductions—Damon?  Dennis?—because the other freshman was distractingly pretty.  Medium brown hair, hazel eyes, apple cheeks, lanky and leggy, in tight jeans that went on for days.  Lardo steered Nursey to the pong table by his elbow, chuckling low and amused.

‘You’re drinking for us this game, because you’re the one who’s gonna miss shots,’ she said, leaning close, ‘and then you’re gonna find your intestinal fortitude and hit on my friend’s little brother.’

Nurse flushed and hoped no one noticed—aside from Lardo, who knew exactly what she’d done.

The pong match went exactly as Lardo had predicted—they won, through no skill or grace on Nursey’s part.  He was distracted, not only by his pretty competition but also by Dex in the periphery, clutching a red cup full of something he occasionally sipped from.  Like he was surveying the party, or observing it.  The teams shook hands—good game and all that—and Damon (it _was_ Damon, it turned out) had really gentle hands.

Nursey was a bit buzzed after the game, but wandered out to the porch to find Shitty and the tub juice station.  He handed over a solo cup with some ceremony and no audience.

‘Drink up, my little frog—my little froshling.  Make bad decisions, but not ones you’ll regret.  Also, Lardo says you still have a mission to complete for her.’

‘Apparently.’

‘You’re doing good, though?’  Shitty leveled him a look that—even undermined by his being the person handing a minor (more) strong booze—demanded a truthful and complete answer.

‘Enough, yeah.  Whole day’s been a bit off, but not catastrophically so.’  Nursey shrugged, which prompted a full-body hug from Shitty.  Like it usually did.

The door to the Haus opened, and a couple girls came out for tub juice.  Shitty shooed Nursey back in, muttering things about making sure to accomplish his mission or Lardo wouldn’t let him hear the end of it.  Nursey hoped Lardo hadn’t told Shitty the nature of the ‘mission,’ but knew there was no helping it either way.  Bitty’s infiltrated Ransom’s playlist and switched it from Kesha to Beyoncé, and the perfectly-normal-sized forward was dancing in the middle of the room.  Spotting Dex—watching Bitty from the other side of the room—Nursey saluted with his solo cup and took a pull of the tub juice.  Dex returned the gesture with a small smile.  Dex didn’t seem subtle enough to lie with a smile, so maybe there was hope?

Now to find Damon so Lardo and Shitty wouldn’t chirp him for it later.

‘Hey.’  Nursey turned up the wattage on his smile as he settled against the wall and the side of the green couch—close but not invading Damon’s space.  He wanted to get his hands on this guy,

‘Nursey—hey.  You guys throw a helluva party.’  Damon didn’t move, either toward him or out into his own space.  Smiled, though.

‘Yeah.  The upperclassmen are adamant that we strive to throw the best kegsters on campus.  You having a good time?’

‘Yeah, even though your manager wiped the floor with me and my sister.’

‘I helped!’

Damon laughed.  ‘Yeah, you soaked up booze for—is she really called Lardo?’

‘Ch’yeah, man.  Nicknames around here are serious business.’

‘So I gather.  And you’re happy to be Nursey, rather than… Derek, is it?’

‘Yeah, mostly.  Been a long time since anyone’s called me Derek but my parents.’

Damon nodded.  Silence stretched to a beat.  Longer.  Nurse took a swallow of his tub juice.

‘So, you’re really cute.  Would you be down for coffee sometime?  Maybe dinner?’

Damon smiled, a bit sadly—as if smiling would soften the blow Nursey suddenly saw coming.

‘You’re not so bad, yourself, Nursey, but… I’m not really looking to date right now.  Sorry.’

Nursey smiled, too.  Woodenly.  Leaned against the wall for a moment more, watching Bitty continue to dance.  The party kept going, but the night had soured.  He nodded at Damon, motioned with his mostly empty solo cup, and wandered off in search of a new place to lean.  And to drink.

Nursey drank.  After seeing Dex chatting up some girl across the room, he went outside to refill his tub juice.  Shitty wasn’t watching, so no one noticed that he downed half a cup and filled it back to brimming before returning inside.  He attached himself to the wall for a while, but got antsy, so he joined the dancing throng for a while.

The movement helped, and the crowd and contact and communing with the music, too.  Booze didn’t help—never helped, he knew he’d be full of regret come morning, but couldn’t muster up the care to stop now—so it maybe didn’t matter that tub juice sloshed out of his cup as he danced.

There was, for a brief shining moment, a table to dance upon.

There were hands on his shoulders—picking him up?  Did he fall?—and steering him.  Someone else’s coat and puking in the bushes.  Multiple bushes.  An interrogation (ginger-eared polizei) about his room and his keys and god why are you like this, Nurse?  A hand in his back pocket, but that didn’t cop a feel.  A trash can placed by a bed—his bed—and instructions not to die as his shoes got pulled off.  And then, wrung out, sleep.

* * *

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Nurse’s father decided that if Derek was old enough to go away to school, old enough that having Jeannie as an au pair was no longer necessary, he was old enough to learn about alcohol.  He’d already been allowed one glass of wine with dinner when they all ate together—so, infrequently—but Mr. Nurse drew some distinction between wine-at-dinner and alcohol more generally.

There was no prelude to the decision, no tell that suggested it might be incoming, nothing.  Just an idle declaration as Nurse helped him dismantle the T-Day centerpiece—sterling pheasants and peahens (intended as salt cellars and similar, but never used as such, salt being terrible for silver) hidden among a table’s length profusion of the most colorful fruits and vegetables available.  There were bunches of bananas and artichokes and apples, plums and grapes and gourds—and one pineapple anchoring each of the three silver bowls on the table.  Various sorts of nuts—reused year upon year, because no one was going to actually _eat_ them—filled in the cracks and crevices and covered up the layer of plastic wrap that protected the white damask tablecloth from having produce sit on it for several days running. 

They kept a pineapple, because Mom loved it for breakfast as long as it was fresh, and the bananas.  The rest was split among the staff—the cleaning lady and the doormen and the one of Nurse’s old nannies who was still on good terms with the family.  It took an hour to set up, but only ten minutes or so to take down.  It didn’t even look like the pheasants would need polishing this year.

‘We’re doing a taste-test tonight, Derek.  White liquors tonight, brown liquors tomorrow.  If you aren’t drinking at school yet, you’ll probably end up doing so sometime, I’m sure.  You should know what you like and what’s good.’

‘Oh.  Um.  Okay, Dad.’

He didn’t mention that he hadn’t tried alcohol beyond the wine at dinner.  He didn’t mention that even if his team or his friends were drinking, they wouldn’t invite him.  He didn’t mention that he knew his meds interacted with alcohol and that drinking wasn’t recommended while taking them.

Darlene Nurse wanted no part of it.  Despite mentioning Nurse’s medication, his age, and the inadvisability of social ingratiation by means of alcohol, Nurse’s father was unswayed.  She went to bed early that evening, an air of displeasure following in her wake.

The liquor cabinet wasn’t large—just two shelves of a variety of bottles ranging from mostly full to mostly empty a few feet wide and perhaps six bottles deep.  Mr. Nurse pulled out the clear liquors—gin (herbal and floral), vodka (potato and grain), several flavors of aquavit, silver rum, blanco tequila.  There were small bottles each of goldschläger, ouzo, and white whiskey.  He poured about a finger of each alcohol into a snifter or shot glass and lined them up on the countertop.

Nurse started with sips of the vodka, which was mercifully tasteless beyond the dreadful burn in his throat.  He couldn’t taste the distinctions his father tried to point out.  The floral gin was alright, but the herbal tasted like drinking the ugly plants in a garden.  Things got a bit fuzzy after that, as the conversation about how the various liquors tasted ran all together.  Mostly he remembered all of the small bottles being vile.

Nurse’s mother came in the next morning, bright and early, singing gently to wake him up as she brought him oatmeal, juice, and advil.  The sun was too bright and she was too loud and everything was awful—but in a physical way, rather than the dreadful emptiness of his depression.  Nurse wasn’t sure that was a useful lesson, and he was sure it wasn’t the intended one.  Nevertheless, it was a lesson, and he would see if it held true after tonight’s drinking.

* * *

‘If you don’t get up and let me change your sheets, darling sister mine, I’m going to sing your song at you.’

‘I hate you, Billy.’

Eileen did not move from bed, where she was lying shivering in what felt like a puddle of her own cooling sweat.  Her face was peeked, and even paler than usual in contrast with her brown hair.  She groaned at the thought of moving.  Smirking, Billy followed through on his threat.

‘Poor old Johnny Ray,’ he sang, quietly, softly.  ‘Sounded sad upon the radio.’

‘You can’t do this to me, Billy, I’m literally dying here.’  She pouted with all the limited energy she had at her command.

‘Literally nothing, ‘Leen.  Let me help you up and into the bathroom, at least.  There’s a bath drawn.  You can clean off there, warm up and wash off the sweat.  You’ll feel better, I promise.  I’ll change your sheets and lay out some new PJs for you.  Sound good, kiddo?’

‘You’re only four years older than me.’  Eileen grumped, but got out of bed and wobbled her way to the bathroom with Billy’s hand steadying her.  He made sure she could get into the tub herself before leaving her to it, closing the door behind him.

It was just a summer cold, he told himself, nothing to worry about.  She’d be right as rain again soon.  Ryan would come home from work in a few hours and probably bring ice cream—that was as close as he could come to making everything better these days.  Until then, though, his sick baby sister was his to watch over and take care of.  She was, he thought to himself, adorably impossible when she was sick.  So it couldn’t be that bad: she still had the energy to hate feeling awful—and, by extension, everything that reminded her of it.

Miss Match, the crabby calico who considered Eileen her person even though Kelly’d brought her home, scratched uselessly at the door to the bathroom.  Realizing that she wouldn’t get in herself, she turned to Billy and yowled at him, startling him out of his worries.

‘I’m not helping you, cat.  You’ll fall in the bath again, and I can’t let you scratch anyone else up.’

Billy stood up—he hadn’t realized he’d sat down on Eileen’s bed—and stripped the sheets.  He bundled them up, along with Eileen’s dirty clothes, and dropped them in a pile in the hallway to take downstairs later.  While out there, he got clean sheets out of the linen closet and put them on his sister’s bed, making sure to do the hospital corners only loosely, so Eileen could kick out of them like she liked.

The cat had not stopped yowling.

‘Eileen, either the cat’s coming in there or I’m gonna toss her out the window.’

‘You wouldn’t hurt that cat any more than you’d hurt me, Billy.  Just let her in.’

‘It’s your fault if she falls in.’

‘No, it’s her own fault.  But she’ll never admit it, so it might as well be yours.’

‘I hate you.’

‘No you don’t.  Now open the door so the cat will shut up.’

Billy complied, and Miss Match—Kells had thought herself so clever at that name, even though didn’t shorten down into any really useful nickname—twined around his ankles purring before slipping into the bathroom.  He could hear Eileen muttering at the cat as he closed the door again.  He took the laundry down to the utility room and got a load started.

When he got back to his sister’s room, Eileen was on her bed, half curled around a wet, purring cat and apparently lacking the energy to get under the covers.  Miss Match murred at him when he walked in, standing and stretching before hopping off the bed and walking pointedly over his feet on her way out of the room.

Eileen looked miserable.

‘Bath take all your energy?’

‘Yes.  I hate this, Billy.’

‘I’ll text Ryan in a bit to ask if he’ll bring you some ice cream and chocolate jimmies when he gets home from work.  Until then, there’s still some chowder from last night’s supper in the fridge—you want any of that?  Or do you just wanna sleep?’

‘Sleep, I think.  Billy?’

‘Yeah, ‘Leen?’

‘Sing me a lullaby?’

‘Any requests?’

‘Something that you like and that’s quiet.’

‘Narrow selection, that.’

Billy thought a moment before he remembered Ryan’s old Guster CD that he’d passed down when Billy first got a stereo.  He helped Eileen get under the covers and piled a couple blankets on her and offered her the services and companionship of Sir Bear, which she declined.  Then he knelt by the bed and started singing to her, quietly, starting in the middle because he could never remember the ending of the first verse—

‘Yes I’m blue but from holding my breath, like I have from the start…’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter this time--it was one of the last I wrote for this part, to replace one that I bumped to the next term. Hope everyone's holidays (for those of you who have/care/celebrate them) are going or have gone well.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short section this time. Warning for Nursey's team being the racist dicks you always thought they would be (also, I discovered in researching the school that Gunga the gorilla has, in fact, been Andover's unofficial mascot for years). So, on the one hand, if that's an issue skip his backstory section; on the other, as a white dude, yell at me if I'm handling the race-related portions of this fic wrong.

It had started as chirping.  One of St. Lawrence’s forwards had commented on his skating, his skates, his hair.  Called him Weasley, without knowing that Dex was in about the right sort of family for it.  Probably because of his hair.  It hadn’t worked, because why should Dex let any of that get to him?  This wasn’t the sort of talk that hurt.  Plus, none of it was even new—or well executed.

It had changed when Bitty scored off a pass Dex sent forward, one that Shitty would almost certainly describe later as filthy or nasty or, possibly, orgasmic.  Shits was weird.  The forward’s tone had changed, though, along with his focus.  He’d asked if Dex always passed to his tiny forward, asked if they were together like that were a bad thing or even possible, asked who topped.  It pricked nerves, but it was hockey and that’s what chirping was for.  Still no points for novelty or style.  Things were fine.

Until, naturally, they weren’t.  The combination of a dirty hit on Bitty and some gleeful slurs from that same damn forward took Dex past the point of caring, elegance of chirping or no.  They were already down two before Bitty’s goal, so it shouldn’t have been a thing—no point in bad hits or malicious chirping once you’re winning.  Unless you’re an asshole.

Before he had fully processed what he was doing, Dex slammed the forward into the boards from behind, dropping gloves and reaching up to tear the forward’s helmet off sideways.  Blood roared in his ears, and the shouts in the rink fell a background hum.  Dex twisted his hips as he balled up a fist, letting the follow-through from taking the asshole’s helmet off lead into his punch.  Dex cracked him on the corner of the jaw.  The forward crumpled, and Dex stopped to pick up his gloves before skating to the bench.

He was ejected—game disqualification.  No shock there.  Dex met, briefly, with Hall and Murray to explain himself—they couldn’t support his decision, but couldn’t earnestly tell him he was wrong to be provoked, either.  Just maybe stick to checking next time.  He waited on the bus for everyone else to file in.  Their mood suggested they’d lost.  Unclear by how much.  Nursey flopped down beside Dex’s window seat.

‘The fuck was that, then, Poindexter?’

‘A fight, Nurse.  Well, almost.  A punch.’

‘Care to share with the class why you sucker punched a forward and got yourself removed from the game?’

‘No.  Did I just stun him, or did I actually punch him out?’  Dex tried to keep his voice level, his glare a simmer not a boil.  Trying to keep his anger pointed not at Nursey.

‘That’s what you fucking care about?  We lost, by the way.  They scored on your penalty, so Jack’s goal in the third didn’t tie us up like it might have if you had _fucking been there_.’

‘I figured we lost by the attitude when everyone got on the bus, so that wasn’t the relevant news.  I wanted to know if I’d actually injured that asshole or just stopped him in his tracks a second.  I had no particular plans to concuss him, but it’s hard to precisely judge force and momentum on the ice.  So.  How was he?’

Nursey gaped at him.  Ransom turned around over the seat a row ahead with a strange look on his face—not quite anger, not quite revulsion, but certainly a new consideration of Dex.

‘He got up once the ref skated over.  He was out of the arena for a few minutes, probably being checked out by medical staff.  Was back on the ice in the third.  Seriously, though, Dex—what happened there?’

Before Dex could answer, Nursey recovered his powers of speech.

‘Do you realize how fucking calculated you sounded there, talking about judging force and momentum as if it were variables rather than you punching the fuck out of a dude on the ice with no provocation?’

‘Ugh.  Just fuck off already, Nurse.  I owe you zero explanations.  I’ve already talked to Hall and Murray, so take it up with them.  Just know that if it had been you, I might not have done it.’

‘The fuck does that—’

‘Boys, that’s enough.  Nursey, you come sit up here with me and Lardo’ll go back and sit with Dex.  And neither of y’all are getting any pie tonight.’

‘That’s not fair!  This fucker won’t explain why he assaulted a guy and—’  Nursey got up and trudged forward on the bus, continuing to whine until Dex’s voice cut him off.

‘Oddly, I agree with Nurse, Bitty.  Just because I refuse to take his bait and that he can’t deal with that doesn’t mean he should go without pie.’

Lardo gave him a blank look as she sat down and Chowder goggled at him from across the aisle.

‘What?’  Dex said quietly, hoping Nursey wouldn’t hear.  ‘It _isn’t_ fair that he can’t understand that explanations aren’t his for the demanding.’

‘Dude.’  Lardo was pulling his fist apart—Dex hadn’t noticed he was clenching it, hadn’t felt the crescents of nails pressing in against his palm until the pressure was gone.  Huh—he should trim those.  ‘How many fights have you been in?’

‘Enough.’  Dex said nothing for the remainder of the ride back to Samwell.  Lardo kept hold of one of his hands, not allowing it to clench back up.  He only hated her a little for it, and not really even then.

* * *

The cuts on his hands hurt like a bitch.  If he said that out loud, Billy—still Billy to himself, even as he tried to tell others to call him William now—would almost certainly get his mouth washed out with soap once he got home.  One of the seventh-graders, Nathan, was squalling on the ground, clutching at his mouth, where Billy had at least loosened a tooth, and possibly knocked it out.  He was proud of that, and then immediately ashamed of being proud. 

Billy prided himself on learning from his mistakes.  On not repeating them.  His fighting had certainly improved.  The adults probably didn’t think his reasons for getting into fights had, though.  Ryan, when he was home on weekends, would talk to him about the importance of not being a bully.  He was the only one who listened to his reasons for getting into fights, and Billy loved him for it.  Ma just told him to pick his battles, suggesting that none of the ones he _did_ pick were worth it.

Billy walked to the office, stopping only to get his backpack out of his locker.

The thing is, Billy didn’t _start_ fights.  Despite his reputation—anger issues, poor in money and manners, combative, reactive, so many words to fail to explain him—Billy only stepped into fights.  He moved, he thought, to intercept.  He’d overheard a fifth grader, one he’d helped eat in peace a few weeks before, call him some kind of avenging angel on the playground.

‘Can I help you?  Oh, hello there Billy.  What can I do for you?’  The secretary did her level best to not react at the scuffs on his face or the blood on his fingers.

‘William, please, Mrs. Dirkes.  I’m here for some band-aids and because I’ll end up here anyway.’

‘You were in another fight?’  It wasn’t really a question.

‘Yes.  About those band-aids?’

‘You know where they are, kiddo.  I should probably call your mother.  Who was it this time?’

‘Danny and Joseph.  They’re probably not far behind me.’

Billy went back to the nurse’s closet to get the first aid kit to tend to himself.  He only bothered the nurse if things actually felt like they needed attention.  He listened to Mrs. Dirkes calling his mother as he finished up and moved to the vacant office where Mrs. Waukeda had briefly tried to improve his handwriting through the use of chopsticks and cheerios.

‘Hello.  Mrs. Poindexter?  Yes, this is Sandy Dirkes from—yes.  I’m fine, thank-you, how are you?  Mhm.  It’s about Billy—William.  I don’t know the exact circumstances, but he walked in a minute ago with bloody knuckles and you should probably just head down to pick him up, because he’s already admitted to being in a fight.  Yes, he’ll be in the office.  Thank-you.  Buh-bye.’

Danny and Joseph, each a year older and with an inch or so on Billy, walked into the office.  Mrs. Dirkes directed them back to the first aid closet, where the Nurse O’Brien took a look at them.  One of them would have a shiner, she pronounced, while the other was lucky to have only a split lip and no lost teeth.

‘Erin, glad to see you got here so quickly.’

‘Of course, Kaki.  I wish it were under better circumstances.’  Hearing this from the back room, Billy ducked his head.  This would not be a fun ride home.

‘It happens, and with some regularity.  He never tells us why he gets into fights.  Just takes responsibility and goes to the back room to wait for you.  You can come out now, Billy, your mom’s here.’

‘If it’s alright, Mrs. Tusler, could you call me William, please?’

‘Of course Bill—William.  Just—try not to come see me again this month?’

‘Do the best I can.’

Mrs. Tusler sighed and his mother rolled her eyes.  They said their farewells and Mrs. Poindexter steered her son toward the car.  It was not terribly gentle—Billy’s mother was never terribly subtle about how she felt.  They got into the hatch-back station wagon and Billy buckled up in silence.

‘Who started it?’

‘I threw the first punch, but didn’t start it.’

‘How did you not start it if you threw the first punch?’

‘If they’d… if they hadn’t acted like they were, I wouldn’t have needed to punch them.’

‘That almost makes sense, Billy.’

‘William.’

‘William, is there anything else I should know about this fight?  You get into a whole lot of them.  And those two boys were bigger than you, today, and a grade ahead of you.’

‘I’m closer to their own size, and picking on them.’

‘You know you have to choose your battles, right?  I’ve told you that repeatedly.’

‘Yeah.  And I tell you the same thing: I do.  Each one’s a choice, and it’s not the wrong one.  You and Ryan talk about how bad bullies are.  I’m not one.’

Mrs. Poindexter sighed, wondering what to do with her Billy.

‘At least try to not have serious enough fights that you get sent home?  I have to take time off to come get you, have to get emergency substitutes, and jump through all sorts of hoops.  So, when you’re deciding whether each fight you get in is the right choice, factor in your family and our budget, too, please.’

By the time she finished, Mrs. Poindexter was blushing so much that it showed the concealer she uses to cover up her freckles —Billy knew where he got his hated blush.  She white-knuckled the wheel and didn’t look at her son and didn’t explain why money trumped doing the right thing.

‘If you help with dinner, I won’t tell your father until after you’re in bed.’

‘So what’re we cooking?’

* * *

It was hard for Nurse to love hockey in his upper-mid year.  Shorter, captain by acclaim (with Nurse abstaining), was—unshockingly—worse when given power.  Nurse ran drills and suicides more or less on the senior’s whim.  Also not shockingly, this happened frequently.  Mostly it was intended to shame him for minor—apparently respect-based—infractions.  Although Campbell had called a couple assholes out fairly spectacularly, the other coaches mostly turned a blind eye.  Nurse knew better than to complain to them.

There had been complaints—well, not complaints, really.  Rumblings.  Trickle-down from Shorter and his crew, Nurse assumed.  His whole last name couldn’t be a suitable nickname.  Nurse can’t say when it started, but he can remember when he first heard it directly.  He’d been leaving Holmes to head back to his dorm for study hall.

‘Where you off to, Gunga?’

The name doesn’t register—why should he respond to the school’s mascot’s name?

‘Gunga, not staying in Holmes for study hall?  I wanted to ask you about that paper for AP US, man.’

‘Gunga?’

‘Yeah, man.  You didn’t know you got a new nickname?  No wonder you’ve been missing passes for weeks.  You’re our very own ape on the ice, all King Kong and shit.’

‘Huh.  No.  Can’t say I’d figured that one.  Anyway, I gotta go—upper-mid or no, I’m still on prefect duty tonight.’

It wasn’t the most graceful exit, and Nurse chided himself on it as he slipped around a corner before increasing his pace.  He told himself he should be used to it by now—the casual malice, the subtle racism.  The unsubtle racism.  It was worse this year, since he’d been outed.  He took the least-used hallways and stairwells back to his dorm, invited irk about his tardiness by taking a minute to steel himself for not-showing-anything for just another evening on duty.

Once it was out in the open, it got worse.  The hockey team rebranded him without his input—stole his name and gave him a new one.  It was hard to tell who was in on the putative joke and who just thought Gunga was what he went by now.  Nurse wound himself tighter internally, slouched along a little more overtly blasé, and the internal pressure mounted.  He hated himself for his inability to stand up to this shit. 

Nurse really couldn’t, though.  He knew a fight wouldn’t end it, knew a fight was what Shorter wanted.  He knew that talking to Campbell about it would result in minimal progress—Shorter had money, in ways even Nurse’s parents didn’t.  Money like ‘fuck you, I’ll buy a new athletic complex so you’ll turn a blind eye to my kid doing coke’ (that wasn’t Shorter, but it had happened.  Kids walked past the gym wiping their noses knowingly for years).  Money enough to escape any repercussion in this putatively meritocratic school. 

Nurse hated the world for stealing the ability to stand up to this shit from him.

So Nurse turned his chill façade up to max and prepared to weather the storm.  He developed his selective hearing such that he missed the first two or three times he was called the school mascot’s name in any given interaction.  He whined on gchat to Shitty, who sympathized and offered to call a tip in to Campbell, but otherwise couldn’t really do much.

There were a few on the team who seemed nervous about calling him an ape’s name—who were aware of the overtones and undertones and implications of calling a black kid anything related to a monkey.  Most of them lacked the testicular fortitude, as Campbell was fond of saying.  Of the entire team, only Aaron—Beeker, second string winger—refused entirely and just called him Nurse still.  He resolved to make better friends with the kid.  Hell, most of the school adopted it like it were normal and acceptable—Nurse’s friend Dorian was another exception.

Somehow, in the way that gossip occasionally transcended one school’s communities—phone calls between siblings and friends from private middle schools and all the other usual ways—Nurse became Gunga to the opposing teams, too.  A forward from Belmont shrugged off a check and chirped that he wasn’t quite king kong; another, from Choate, bounced off of him and fell back on his ass.  Somehow that had resulted in general cheers and a brief chant of ‘Gunga angry/Gunga smash.’  The d-man for St. Paul’s, instead of chirping him, apologized—said he knew what it was like to be the only brown dude on the hockey team.

The center forward from Exeter stopped the nickname in its tracks in the first game of the Flood-Marr Tournament.  It was, Derek thought later, elegantly direct.  It offered Nurse a reprieve at the same time as it deprived his team of something to call him.  Further, the d-man’s stage whisper had been pitched to carry far enough for the rinkside seats to be able to hear:

‘He’s Gunga cuz he’s black, right?  _Great_ joke, assholes.  Real creative.’

If Derek avoided checking the guy for the entire game as a result, it was chill.


	6. Chapter 6

Nursey knew he was bad at sleeping.  Knew that he ruminated and distracted his mind until it was too tired to run over the ways in which it thought he’d fucked up in order to eventually blank his mind and crash.  Knew that this wasn’t the best way to deal with sleep, health, depression, or life—and yet.

Nursey wasn’t helpless.  He took care of himself at Andover when there were few enough people who’d assist.  Granted, all he had to do was learn the signs of impending sickness and drag himself over to health services and occupy a bed or a chair or whatever for a day or so.  Samwell’s health services was more akin to an actual doctor’s office in its services—less coddling and sympathy.

So, when he woke up with a sore throat and a dry mouth and a black hole behind his eyes, he couldn’t just drag himself to health services.  He dug the Sudafed out of the first aid kit his mom made sure he kept stocked—well, that she asked about once a year at the start of school, like it was written on a list of questions—and filled his gallon jug of water from the bathroom, along with his brita and his hot pot.  Once back in his room, he plugged the kettle in and put tea and honey in a mug.  He checked e-mail while he waited for the water to heat, sent notes to his professors for that day.

The tea was still steeping when he closed his eyes for just a minute.

When Nursey opened his eyes again, the afternoon sun slanted in through the ineffectual curtains drawn across his dorm windows.  His tea was room temperature and way oversteeped.  He drank it anyway, swallowing around the razorblades in his throat.  He had no idea whether or not he was running a fever, but he was actually cold for once, so he bundled up.  Drank a glass of water and opened a pack of saltines.  It’d be better if he had an orange or something, but he’d have to make do with some cold lozenges that advertised something like twenty thousand percent RDA of vitamin C.  No risk of scurvy, at least.

Sleep escaped him after that, even if it was what he knew he needed.  Thinking felt like swimming through molasses, so reading wasn’t a thing.  He turned off his alarms in case he did manage to find sleep, then rolled over onto his stomach, situated a pillow under his chest, thought about turning on a show, but he didn’t have the attention for it.  He opened up iTunes and started Night Vale playing and let Cecil’s voice envelop him.

Nursey woke up twice in the night, once during a raucous weather segment, and once just because his body decided it had slept enough.  Neither time lasted long, as Nursey hadn’t the energy to do more than turn his head to look at the red LED numbers on his alarm clock.

The pounding wasn’t in his head, he realized, because it didn’t follow him when he moved.  It didn’t go away when he burrowed farther into his blankets.  It slowly dawned on him that someone was at the door.  Pounding on it.

Nurse struggled to achieve verticality, but kept a blanket wrapped around himself, toga-like.  He shuffled toward the door, bracing himself on his desk and the dorm room’s built-in bookcase.  Looking through the peephole, he got an eyeful of angry redhead.

‘Nurse, if you don’t open this door, I’m going to get your RA to open it for me.’  If he were healthy, Nursey would debate whether Dex was yelling or growling.

Nursey opened the door.

‘You missed practice.  Twice.’

‘Shit,’ Nurse croaked out.  ‘What time is it?’

‘You sound like death.  Why didn’t you text someone.  You know, like Jack?  Or Bitty—or even, heaven forfuckingfend, me.  It’s 2:30.  I came over to see if you were dead because Chowder’s in class and made me promise.  When did you last eat?’

Dex scrubbed a hand through his hair.  It stuck up a bit, like he’d been doing that repeatedly throughout the day.  His mouth was set in a thin line while he waited for Nursey to respond.

‘I have, like, saltines and tea and throat drops.’

‘That’s a better start than I thought you’d have, but that’s not food.’

‘Saltines are food.’

‘Saltines are a way to keep substance and salt in your stomach so you don’t expire entirely.  Now.  Food.  When?’

‘Ugh.  Pushy.  ‘M goin’ back to bed.  Throat hurts.’  Nursey left the door open in case Dex still wanted to yell at him.

‘Don’t lock your door or I’ll have to get your RA to open it so I can deliver you soup.’

‘Soup?’

‘Drinkable calories and other useful healthy bits so you don’t go from sick to malnourished.  Fuck, dude, how did you survive to adulthood?’

‘Fending for myself, mostly.  It’s just a cold, _dude_.  I’ll get over it.’

‘And I’m benched, more or less, until you do.  So go back to bed, asshole, and let me take care of you.  Don’t die while I’m gone.’

Nursey flopped back onto his bed and groaned.  What the hell even was that.  Dex hated him.  Why was he, out of anyone it could have been, the one to check on him.  Oh, right.  Chowder was in class.  Ransom might have, but it was getting on towards finals and he’d already fallen into Coral Reef mode one afternoon this week.  He reached out blindly toward his desk and groped around until he found his phone. 

It was dead.

With more groaning, Nursey fumbled around until he found a charger—nearly clearing his desk in the process through a combination of balance issues and pulling on the wrong cord—and plugged it in.  Turning it on, he listened to a rolling cascade of notifications: texts and snaps, missed calls and voicemails, tweets and e-mails. 

Most of the calls and voicemails were Shitty and Chowder—with several from Dex, too.  Nothing from his parents, but why would there be.  Chowder started off worrying, and then just ended up whining into the phone about how he didn’t know where Nursey was or whether he was alive.  Shitty inquired about his health, his mental health, and whether he were fighting with Dex enough to miss practice.  Dex left no messages.  Nursey refused to think about that too hard. 

The e-mails mostly from professors, thanking him for letting them know, sending well-wishes, and a couple including assignments not otherwise noted on syllabi.  The rest was just internet.  And, of course, the group chat, which seemed to have generally concluded Nursey had died peacefully in his sleep after Chowder failed at Nursey Patrol, never mind how there hadn’t been a kegster for two weeks.  Chowder had apologized profusely for failing at his charge and asked Dex to check on the state of the body.

**Me** : ‘m not dead.

**Shits** : Hollyfuckigshithelives!

**Adam Oluransi** : He thinks he’ll go for a walk.

**Justin Birkholtz** : He feels…

**Adam Oluransi** : Happyyyyyyyyy!

**Justin Birkholtz** : Happpppppppy!

**Adam Oluransi** : Bro.

**Grins** : Boys.

**Jaws** : NURSEY!!!  Did Dex check on you?

**Me** : yeah, man.  Thanks just so much for siccing him on me.  Chewed me out and left me to die while he went off in search of real food or something.

**Snap** : I specifically told you not to die, Nurse.  I’m on my way back.  Again, saltines are not real food.

**Mom** : We made you chicken noodle soup, Nursey.  I hope you feel better! 

**Dad** : Next time consider letting us know that you’re ill, eh?

**Jaws** : Feel better Nursey!  I told Dex to be nice to you.

**Snap** : I was plenty nice.  I didn’t finish the job his sickness started.

**Me** : Sorry.

**Justin Birkholtz** : feel better, dude!

Nursey didn’t have the energy to explain or offer any excuses.  He’d beat himself up about it later, probably, if it became a point of contention.  Hopefully it wouldn’t.  He decided he should consume at least a bit of water before Dex returned, to prove he could and had and would continue to.  If it mattered in the face of his gingery rage.  Swallowing didn’t hurt as much this time.

There came a stern knock at his door.  It opened as Dex announced that he’d better not be naked in there.  He came in, wearing a hat probably foisted on him at the Haus and a poofy down vest-thing he hadn’t had on earlier, carrying an insulated lunchbox and a giant thermos.

‘Good.  You didn’t lock it.  Or die in the meantime.  Well done.’  It wasn’t nearly as sharp a chirp as Nursey had come to expect, even from Dex’s offhand—backhand—compliments.

‘I sometimes decide to take direction.’

‘I should threaten to murder you more often.’

‘Nah, you do that plenty.  I just didn’t have the energy to get back up.’  If he said it flippantly enough, Dex might not be able to tell he wasn’t lying.

‘Sit up.  I have soup and toast and jam for you, courtesy of Bitty.’

‘He said you helped.’

‘I carried things.

‘You never take credit for yourself.’

‘You never shut up when you should.’

‘Eh.  You probably didn’t poison that on the way over.’

‘Why go to the trouble of bringing it when I could just let you waste away, right?  Here.  Have a bib.’

Dex flung a towel at Nursey—from the clean pile, at least.  Nursey set it aside.

‘Eh.  If I spill, I’ll just have to change the sheets or whatever.  I already need new pajamas.’

‘And a shower.  Don’t pour this on yourself.  It’s hot and I don’t want to have to explain awkwardly placed burns.’  Dex poured soup from the thermos into a mug he retrieved from Nursey’s dish drawer and handed him a spoon to go with it.

‘Blueberry ginger or strawberry sage?’

‘Whichever has stronger flavor.  Nose is starting to get stuffy, so taste buds are probably on their way out.’

‘Ginger it is.’ 

Nursey didn’t have the energy even to make the obvious joke.

Dex took a knife from Nursey’s dishes, opened up the lunchbox, flipped out a couple pieces of toast, and started spreading jam on them.

Nursey’s confusion finally got the better of his discretion—and self-preservation.

‘Why are you being nice to me, Dex?’

‘Am I not allowed, Nurse?  Chowder’s out of class in a few—I can make him trade out, if you want.’

‘That’s not what I meant.  You don’t like me on the best of days.  And yet you’re here, losing time for work or—fuck, practice is soon, isn’t it?—or that.  I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t not like you.  You’re aggravating as fuck and your lack of awareness of how money works for people who aren’t stupendously rich is breathtaking, but I don’t think you can help either of those things.  Despite that, you’re not really a bad guy, for the most part.  If you want an explanation that doesn’t undermine your theory of the world, then remember that we’re d-men together and that I don’t play without you.  And that my scholarship kinda depends on it.’

That was a lot of words, Nursey thought.  He delayed answering, distracting himself with soup-steam to let the words sink in without much analysis.

‘Scholarship?’  Nursey blinked the steam out of his eyes and looked up at Dex.

‘Fucking seriously?’  Nursey watched Dex tense from his clenched fists up his arms and all across his shoulders, like a cord snapped taut.

‘What?’  Better to piss Dex off like this than let on that Nursey did know about his scholarship.  He was reasonably safe from murder this way, at any rate.

‘Did you seriously not know?’

‘Know what?  That you’re on a scholarship?  I didn’t know until you confirmed it just now.’

Dex groaned and didn’t say anything further for a few minutes, tidying up Nursey’s room instead of looking at him—his floordrobe didn’t get put away, but it did get shoved so there were clear walkways from each of the door and the desk and the bed to the others.  Once he’d finished his toast, Nursey let the plate slip to the floor with a curse to try to distract Dex from whatever headspace he was in.  Still not talking, Dex rolled his eyes as he picked it up and put it with the dirty dishes.

‘Done with your soup?’

‘For now, I think.  Thanks.  Should probably take a shower and change the sheets and all that.  Then go back to practicing dying.’

Dex nodded.  He studiously rifled through the pile of clean laundry now confined to the center of his floor while Nursey got his shower caddy and towel and trudged down the hall.  The bathroom was empty, so he tried humming to himself in the shower, but he kept nearly coughing and having to stop.  No secret decade-old pop session today.  He washed as quickly as his lethargic state would allow before returning—towel-clad and carrying his old pajamas—to his single.

To find clean sheets on his bed, clean dishes in a stack, a refilled water jug by his bed, and an empty bowl with spoon and washcloth-for-napkin.  No Dex, no note, no explanation.  What fuckery was this?  Nurse hung up his towel, tossed the clothes into the dirty pile in the closet, got on new boxer-briefs and pajama pants, and flopped back into bed.

His phone chimed.

**Snap** : Feel better, asshole.  Chow’s gonna swing by in the evening.  I’ll get your assignments tomorrow, unless you’ve got that arranged already?

* * *

 Derek had spent most of his energy for the day on just getting up.  His eider down weighed fifteen hundred pounds; the tile floor of the bathroom was ice; his softest towel was briar-scratchy.  Surmounting these obstacles took a toll.  Pouring milk onto his cereal was too much effort, so he ate a dry bowl of frosted flakes (dry frosted flakes would always thereafter taste like sadness to Derek, to Nurse, to Nursey, regardless of his age).

An hour later, Jeannie returned—from a shopping trip?—to find him still sitting on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island, slumped head on hands on marble, bowl still half-full of uneaten sadness.  Derek fluttered a hand in as much greeting as he could muster.

Jeannie, in her ridiculous cloggy sandals, clomped across the kitchen and, without words, poured the cereal back into the still-open box, closed it, and replaced it on its shelf in the pantry.  She deposited the bowl in the dishwasher.  All this without a word to Derek, who spent the time collecting himself at least enough to remove his face from the chilly countertop.

By the time Derek was standing, unsure what to do with himself, the au pair had left the kitchen and returned with Derek’s fuzziest fleece.  Seeing him standing there, Jeannie pulled him into a squeezing hug of the sort Derek always protested because he knew better than to count on getting another (some part of his mind knew it was safer to have none at all than only ever one).  His small arms reached halfway around her.

Derek burst into tears.

Jeannie didn’t react, except to rub a hand up and down Derek’s small back.  He released her when he was cried out, feeling small and sheepish and guilty.  Jeannie patted his back one last time and let go.

‘I thought we might visit the Natural History museum today.  How do you feel about that, Master Nurse?’  She asked it as if Derek hadn’t failed at morning and hadn’t spent ten minutes crying wet spots into her orange cotton blouse.  She asked it as if he were her boss rather than her charge—he still remembered when she’d explained to him, years before, how little girls were called Miss until they were married, and little boys were called Master until they were twelve.  He’d though the difference was unfair, and she’d agreed. 

‘That sounds nice.  I think I can do that, yeah.’  Derek tried not to mumble, but he was still quiet, almost hoarse from the crying after nearly a full day without talking.  He offered Jeannie a smile.

Jeannie held out his fleece and helped him pull it over his t-shirt.  Once that was secure, and he was shod, she got her coat—an old double-breasted beige trench raincoat with a belt and everything.  It didn’t seem warm enough, but she was from Montana so maybe she wasn’t that cold.  She stood back from Derek and inspected him, meeting his eyes for long moments before nodding to herself—satisfied?

‘What were you looking at?’

‘Checking the temperature of your eyes, kiddo.  They were a bit too grey earlier; looks better now.  We should go catch the train.’

* * *

 His family had gone back to calling him Billy, and it made William want to lash out or hit things or cry (well, not in front of anyone, but even so). But he couldn’t, for any number of reasons—chief among them that Uncle Ed had been kind enough, despite the trouble, to ask his brother if he needed an extra hand in the repair shop.  William wondered how _that_ conversation had gone—and how much Ed had told.  The family gossip mill was churning, what with William’s abrupt retirement from the lobster boat a week prior, and the general tone was an infuriating pity.  Handle with care—not so much sharp as brittle.

They weren’t wrong, really.  At least about the brittle part.  William was, in his own estimation, as sharp as ever.  He just hadn’t realized how much work Ryan put into keeping him together—or, sometimes, putting him back together. 

And he wasn’t coming home.

William finished dismantling the oven he’d been set upon in the back room of Uncle Jim’s shop, dismantling old and dead machines.  No harm to be done there, to him or the machines apparently.  This was his third day, and the other shop employees, Doug and Joshua—the former near Jim’s age, the latter close to his own—had said approximately six words to him so far.  He wasn’t sure what to make of it, so he alternated between jumping to the conclusion that they’d been told to leave him be or that they had already decided they didn’t like him for any number of anxiety-driven reasons.

The reality of Ryan’s not coming home had sunk in a week after they hadn’t gone to his graduation.  James, who had only moved out a few months prior, complained that it should all have gone down sooner and he could have had a room to himself.  William had his own room now as the only boy left at home, and it was desperately empty.  James had taken his stuff to his new apartment first, and then Ma had packed Ryan’s remaining things away to boxes in the cellar.

William realized he was sniffling when he unconsciously wiped at his nose felt grease smear across it, now mixed with snot.  He washed his hands at the sink by coffeemaker and wiped a towel across his face.

‘Break time, Billy.’

‘William.’

‘William.  Sorry.’

‘Time’s it?’

‘Past three.  You had lunch, at least?’

William made as if to go back to the half-dismantled oven; Jim cleared his throat, raised an eyebrow.

‘ _Break_ _time_ , William.’

‘But I have a job to do.’

‘That will still be there when we get back from getting an Italian.’

William must have looked like he wanted to protest further, because Jim took him by a shoulder and steered him outside.  He called out to the other two that he and William were off to get sandwiches, and did they need or want anything?

It was a couple blocks’ walk to Hogan’s, and they walked in silence.  William was grateful that Jim didn’t want an explanation, didn’t want to offer advice or instruction or anything, really.  The sun was bright—warm not hot, but still pretty muggy—and the sky was clear.  Good day on the boat, probably.  He sighed.

Hogan’s was busy—a constant flow, even in the mid-afternoon, of people ordering food.  Mostly ice cream at this point, with the occasional sandwich or float.  They placed their orders to go, got their oversized playing card, and waited for the delivery at an empty table.

‘It’s no good, you know, William, this working yourself to breaking.’

‘But I need the work.’

‘I know.  And you need to be able to do it, too.  Can’t work if you can’t stand.  Can’t work if you hurt yourself, waste away, or whatever the fuck else.  Long as you’re in my shop, your job is to take care of yourself so you can also take care of the other work, too.’

William nodded.

‘I understand that things are not great.  Life has to go on, though—and you have to get on with it, too.  Even when it hurts.  I won’t ask what’s wrong, although I think everyone has some idea.  I won’t make you defend yourself, because we all know that you don’t.  But you will remember to eat lunch.  You will remember to take at least one break in the afternoon.  You _will_ take care of yourself and of your work.  Clear?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’m not a knight, William.  Just Jim or—if you gotta—boss.’

‘Yes, boss.’  William cracked a small smile.  Jim rolled his eyes, but grinned.

‘Good.  Now let’s take these back and get you started on frankensteining together a working oven out of the four you’ve taken apart this week.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, all--hope your International Hangover Day was lovely and relatively painless. Here's another intersection with canon (and unfortunately aptly timed, since I'm currently pretending I'm not sick). Also, declaring Bitty Mom in his contacts is totally something Nursey would do--unless and until someone pointed it out as a shitty thing, which hasn't happened (yet?). Separately, he's forgotten which of the Holsom wonder twins belong to what name in his phone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note for those who'd wanna avoid it: there's a panic attack in this chapter. To skip it, ignore about 40% of a page--the space between the paragraph concluding with "Angry Dex or Weirdly Caring Dex.' to 'I will come talk to you *later*.'
> 
> Also, as an aside, I couldn't actually find in my research the grade names Andover uses, so I went with the most absurd ones I knew (Hotchkiss), which are (in order, 9-12): prep, lower-mid, upper-mid, senior. To be further clear, in case it weren't already, the Andover I'm writing is a reasonably heavily tweaked mix of the various boarding school experiences I had, heard about, and know of from friends/family.

The last day of fall classes, Dex finished early and wandered over to the Haus—Lardo had mentioned the strong odds of there being procrastination-fueled baked goods for days by the time he got there.  Even now, most of a term in, Dex still wasn’t sure of the Haus—it was a family, but not _his_ family.  Perhaps sometime, but not now—not yet.

Climbing the steps to the Haus, Dex noted which boards shifted or squeaked for when he needed a constructive study break.  It was hard, given the shouting from inside—Holster was yelling (at Chowder, maybe?  A Frog, anyway) about how finals-Ransom was ‘a delicate ecosystem.’

The Haus door opened onto carnage.  Several plates of cookies were arranged on the counter, along with one on the floor.  Nursey was the Frog being harangued—both by Holster for disturbing Ransom and by Bitty for destroying a plate and the cookies on it. 

There was no five-second rule for the Haus floor while Bitty was around.

Dex had gotten the broom and swept up the remains of plate and cookies by the time he noticed the lingering smell of burnt something underneath the cookie-smell of caramelized sugar.  Once the mess was dealt with, he lingered in the kitchen, snagging a couple cookies while he waited.  Bitty gave up on Nursey and his insufferable—if currently apologetic—chill and left the living room.

‘Dex!  Just the man I was hoping would stop by.’  Bitty’s smile was falsely bright and didn’t reach his eyes.  Trouble.

‘How can I help, Bitty?’  Dex didn’t mean to sound wary, hoped he didn’t sound tired or anything that might be heard as angry.

‘Something’s wrong with Betsy and her heating element.  One side of a pie I tried earlier was still raw dough while the other side was on the verge between done and burnt.  Could you maybe take a look?  Once she’s up and running again, I’ll make sure the next pie is blueberry.’

‘Sure.  Let me go get my toolbox.’

Dex dropped his bag in the living room so he wouldn’t have to carry it across campus and back, and set off to retrieve it.  His roommate, wearing the same shirt for perhaps the third day running, barely looked up from his haze of prog rock and high-end math.  Dex paused in his mission only to treat himself to a square of his good chocolate that he kept tucked safely in the recesses of his desk.  Toolbox in hand, Dex trekked back across campus.

Bitty stood in the kitchen when Dex returned, wringing his hands anxiously.  That same fake smile reappeared—its honesty, Dex suspected, was contingent on what could be done for the oven.  He offered a reassuring smile in return, projecting competence to the best of his ability.

‘Let’s have a look.  Probably best that you don’t stick around for this, Bitty—it might not be the best way to see the insides of your oven.’

‘Thanks so much for this, Dex.  I guess I’ll have to actually go study now.’

Bitty left the kitchen, as ordered, and apologized again to Chowder—in the living room handily beating Nursey at Mario Kart—for the lack of pie.

Dex set to work, starting with unplugging the oven, moving it out from the wall, and inspecting the back.  Once sure that the oven was cool enough inside, he took a look.  He fell easily into his appliance-repair routine.  Check each element in turn.  Make sure each electrical connector is solid.  The work was quiet and methodical.

Dex didn’t mean to eavesdrop.  Conversations carry, though, and it wasn’t like he could just turn his ears off.  So he tried instead to clatter a bit more when they finished their game and started talking, the tone serious.

‘You keep avoiding questions about your break, Nursey.’

‘Do I?  I just wanted to make sure you got to tell all your stories about the weekend and the Sharks game and all the other things you’ve been up to.’

‘And using it to avoid saying how your break was.  You went back to New York, right?’

‘Yeah, I was in the City.’

‘What’d you get up to?’

‘Eh, not much.  Mucked about.  Coffee shops.  A party one night.  A poetry reading another.’

‘When was the party?’

‘Uh… Friday-ish?  I kinda lost track of the days.’

‘Lost track?  Friday was the _day after_ Thanksgiving.’

‘We don’t celebrate it, given my Aginisi.  Mom was out of town on business.  Had a short, tense dinner with my dad—Wednesday, maybe?—he came home late.  It was whatever.  I think that was the night I spent out on the roof watching the skyline?  Maybe that was Wednesday.’

‘Where does “whatever” land, in Nursey language, relative to chill?’

‘Everything is chill, Chowder.  Being whatever is, well.  Whatever.  Not important.’

Dex could imagine the dismissive face Nursey had to be making.  He didn’t really like that he was developing a gut instinct for when Nursey was dodging—not quite lying, but definitely avoiding.  Another irksome feature of Nurse to not look too closely at.  He continued checking things, trying to focus hard enough to not hear about Nursey’s, by the sounds of it, less than stellar break.

He started mutter-singing to himself—it’s been a long day, living with this, it’s been a long time since I felt so sick—and before half the song was through, he had found the wire that had gotten loose.  Pleased, he got the electrical tape and his pliers out of his toolkit and got it all tucked back in properly.  Then he reassembled the oven, wiped the grime on his hands off on a rag, washed them, and packed his toolkit up.

Nursey and Chowder were still on the couch—Chowder sideways, leaning on Nursey’s left shoulder as if it were a natural and comfortable position.  Nursey was braced against him, an overstuffed notebook open on his lap, scratching away with a fancy-looking pen in his hand.  Chowder waved, grinning, as Dex passed them on his way upstairs.  Dex nodded at him.

Bitty’s door was closed, but bouncy pop music Dex was only starting to learn to recognize flowed out through the door and the gaps around it.  Dex knocked.

‘C’mon in!’

‘Hey, Bitty.’  Dex opened the door and hovered in it.  Bitty was on his bed, swinging his feet back and forth over the edge.

‘Dex!’  Bitty’s face lit up, hopefully.  ‘Have a seat wherever.  How’s Betsy?’

‘Should be back to functioning.’  He pulled out Bitty’s desk chair and sat in it.  ‘I found a wire that had come loose; got it reconnected.  There’s a lot of wear on it, and it probably wants a new heating element or else a complete replacement.  But it should be working again, like I said.’

‘Thanks so much, hon.  I’ll be down in a bit, and the next pie’s all for you.’

‘Could you do a chocolate one, then?’

‘I thought blueberry was your favorite?’

‘Why’d you think that?’

‘There was the questionnaire the coaches sent you all over the summer, if you remember?  Lardo slipped in a question about pie for me.’

‘I… don’t remember that questionnaire.’  Dex lied, trying to sound confused rather than dodgy.  He remembered it quite well—James had gone on a rant about the question and filled “blueberry” in for him, daring Dex to change it.  Hadn’t been worth the fight, so he hadn’t.

‘Huh.  Blueberry was pretty firmly written in.  But, absolutely I can make you a chocolate pie.  I have some of the good stuff hidden away—no I won’t tell you where, you’re officially one of the threats now, William—and I’ll whip up that pie starting just as soon as I finish this dumb reading.’

‘I’ll, um, leave you to it, then, Bitty.  Thanks.’  Dex stood and headed for the door.

‘No problem, Dex—thank _you_.  And know that, even if it apparently wasn’t your favorite, the blueberry pies so far this year were with you in mind.’

‘I figured.  Thanks.’ 

He closed the door behind him and headed back to the kitchen.  Chowder was sacked out on the couch, snoring into its dubious cushions.  Dex gently raised his head and shoved a pillow under it.  Bitty would have less of a fit that way.  He got his bag from the kitchen and brought it into the living room and settled into the armchair, moving the notebook Nursey’d been writing in earlier onto the pile of his bag and books to do so.  Time to make more flashcards for Spanish.

Bitty came back downstairs a while later, waving to Dex and Chowder as he passed into the kitchen.  The sounds of pie—washing fruit; cooking it in sugar, cornstarch, and water; energetically rolling out the crust—preceded the smells of it.  An element of the background noise of the Haus fell back into place, and Dex felt himself relax, knowing he'd set things right.

Dex had made several dozen flashcards—some for vocab, some for the harder syntax rules—by the time Nursey came back into the Haus.  Bitty greeted him distractedly, but shooed him out of the kitchen before he could crash into anything.  Dex didn’t look up when Nursey came into the living room, but still waved in the direction he assumed Nursey to be in.  No need to be the initial antagonist: things might be different this time.

‘Dude, you’re in my spot.’

‘Huh?’  Dex did look up, then.

‘I was saving that chair.  I had my notebook on it.’

‘Oh, is that why it was there?  I thought it was just you strewing your crap all around like usual.  I moved it to the rest of your pile,’ Dex said, pointing.  So much for non-confrontational.

‘You’re ignoring the point where you’re still in my chair.  Also, don’t fucking touch my notebook.  We clear?’

‘One, Nurse, it’s not _your_ chair.  Two, putting a book down on a chair doesn’t save it any more than calling seatbacks and then vanishing for—’ Dex looked at his watch, ‘half an hour would.  Three, would you prefer I sit on your notebook if you try stupid shit with it in the future?’

‘No, I’d prefer that you respect it, the intent behind it, and me.  But it’s chill.  I forgive you, Dexy.’

Nursey shook his head as if at the regrettable antics of some wayward child, scooped up his notebook, and flopped backward onto the couch.  For a second, Chowder looked like he was debating leaving his feet to break Nursey’s fall, but probably decided they’d come out the worse for that collision and jerked them out of the way just in time.

‘Whatcha working on, Chowder?’

‘Just my Chinese.  You done yours yet?’

And that was the last thing anyone in the living room said in English for over an hour.  Dex stayed quiet, still too aware of Nursey’s earlier expression of territoriality.  He tuned out the other two, and tried not to feel left out, even though it was pretty deliberate on Nursey’s part—he’d occasionally look up, smirk, and address Dex in Spanish too advanced and too fast for him to understand.  Chowder would say something, and then they’d be back in Chinese.

Dex, just to be petty, mutters imprecations in Irish he picked up from his ma when she was frustrated with him and his siblings.  That earns a speculative look from Nursey, and more rapid-fire Spanish.  Dex rolled his eyes.  Enough of this.  He waited until Chowder had gone to the bathroom to talk.

‘Are you actually angry that I apparently stole your chair, dude?  Or is it something else I did?’

‘If you have to ask, William, then you can’t properly apologize.’

‘Who said anything about apologizing?  I just want to know the nature of my crime.  You’re doing a pretty good job of making it clear I’m not welcome here with your passive aggressive linguistic bullshit.’

‘I’m sure you can figure it out.’

‘How big is your claim on the territory?  Is it just the chair?  Or does it extend to the whole of the living room?  The whole Haus?  Surely you don’t want the basement.  You don’t even do your own laundry, and you sure as fuck don’t repair shit.’

‘Territory?  What the shit, dude?  Are you accusing me of, like, pissing in corners now?  Cuz that’s just rude.’

‘Of _course_ not, Nurse.  You’re _faaaaar_ too sophisticated for that.  Must be why I can’t read your signals.  You have to dumb it down for the philistine, remember?  The poor stupid white hick.’

Nursey didn’t respond, and for a second Dex thought he might have pushed too far—it’s not like he wanted Nursey to hurt or anything.  Just wanted to get the asshole to back off or down or whatever the proper idiomatic direction was.  There’d be no winning a fight here, either—if he started one now, it’d be a loss both here and on the ice.  The ice being what mattered for keeping his scholarship.  Time for a retreat, even if it looked like a surrender.

Dex started to pack up.  He gathered his flashcards into several stacks, put them together in opposite facings for ease of separation later.  Books into his bag, and the flashcards in on the side, once properly rubber-banded.  Laptop in its padded sleeve hindmost, between his books and his back.

‘Look.  The chair’s yours.  I’ll just head out.  In the future, like leave a sign or whatever giving me a good idea of the contours of your stake and I’ll try to not trespass.’

Nursey just kept looking at him—evaluating, inspecting.  Trying to find the weakness in his armor, perhaps.  When he speaks, it’s angry, but also muted, confused, hurt, maybe?  Why the fuck would he be hurt that Dex was leaving his turf?  Whatever.

‘Why don’t you ever fucking defend yourself, dude?  You only ever go on the attack or cede the field entirely.’

‘That’s just how it works.  If I have to defend myself or my actions, Nurse, I’ve already fucked it up.  So why bother?  Not like it would change your mind about me if I did, right?’

Dex didn’t wait for his reply; he just slung his bag over his shoulder on the way out.

‘Sorry, Bits.  It seems I can’t stay for pie.  Lemme know if the oven needs more work.’

‘It’ll be ready in ten minutes, though, hon.  Another ten to cool and then it’s all yours.’

‘Gotta go.  I’ll come back for it another time.’

Dex was already on the porch by the time he said it, and didn’t hear any further response from Bitty after the door shut in his wake.  His phone vibrated in his pocket over the course of his walk back to his dorm room, but he ignored it.

 **Christopher Chow:** Dex!  You okay!?  Bitty’s all worried and angry at Nursey and you just kinda barged out and no one really gets what happened.  What happened?  
**Me:** Nothing.  Don’t worry about it Chowder.  I impinged on Nurse’s territory and my options seemed to be leave or have a bigass fight.  So I left, cuz no one should be uncomfortable in their home.  
**Christopher Chow:** :(((

 **Eric Bittle:** Dex, I couldn’t hear what you and Nursey talked about, because it was shockingly lacking in yelling, but if he said something awful to you, just say and he’ll be without pie.  
**Me:** Don’t worry about it, Bitty.  It’s fine.  Hopefully it’ll all blow over. 

**Jack:** Bittle made me interrogate Chowder, who doesn’t seem to know what happened.  He showed me your texts from earlier.  You have just as much right to be in the Haus as Nurse does.  Do I need to talk to him to make that clear?

Dex left that one alone.  He had flashcards to make.  And then he’d have flashcards to run through.  And readings to do.  Maybe he’d clean his room, too, while he was at it.  All—if Andrew was out, like he hopefully would be—drowned out in music at the level he’d figured out wasn’t quite enough to draw a noise complaint.  A7X, maybe, he thought.

Despite the common assumptions of SMH, Dex knew his anger was laced with angst.  It was fine, he thought, trying to ignore the self-aware absurdity of lying to himself and the temptation to lie to himself about that.  As a distraction, he spent the remainder of his walk home trying to rehash his argument with Nursey in Spanish, since he couldn’t banish it from his mind entirely.

Andrew wasn’t home.  Dex hooked his laptop up to his speakers and turned the music on at a dull roar.  He was still restless, even after the walk back.  No flashcards yet, then.  Cleaning—change sheets; pile laundry into the hamper; papers picked up and piled on the desk for sorting; shove Andrew’s shit onto his side of the room; vacuum; sort papers.  Anything to ease the tightness in his chest, the prickling skin, the spiraling of and above his thoughts.

Somewhere in there—probably while vacuuming so he couldn’t hear whether he was off-key—Dex started singing along.  Chevelle followed A7X, and he kept it up until he realized that he couldn’t sing _and_ make Spanish flashcards at the same time.  He was finishing up his last set when he realized that someone was pounding on his door.  Dex paused his music, and the pounding stopped.

Dex opened the door to find Nursey kneeling, using his knee as a writing surface and scribbling on a notepad.  There was a pie by his foot.  He looked up when Dex opened the door.

‘Um.’

‘I didn’t know you knew where I lived.’

‘Dude.  Room numbers aren’t hard to find.  They’re on the intranet.  Also the roster.  Also the kitchen in the Haus.  Wait—don’t close the door on me.  I didn’t think you’d answer, with your music and all.  I was writing you a note.’

Nursey closed his notebook—the same one as started problems earlier, Dex noted—picked up the pie in both hands, and stood.  It was uncharacteristically smooth.

‘What do you want?’  Dex wished his default tone with Nursey were something other than flat and defensive.  Dex wished that it didn’t make Nursey’s eyes go grey and guarded.  Dex wished many things.

‘To apologize.  Also to make sure you got your pie.’  Nursey made an offering gesture with it, and Dex took the pie.  Chocolate blueberry, as promised.

‘Thanks for the pie.  Well, thank Bitty for me.  And thank you for bringing it over.’

‘Look.  I was a dick.  It wasn’t about the chair at all, or your taking it, or anything like that.  I’m sorry. I also want to make clear I didn’t mean for you to feel like you aren’t a part of the team or that you’re not welcome at the Haus or that I have any say in anything like that at all.’

Dex snorted at that.

‘Surely not.  It’s just that you’re R&H’s favorite and Shitty’s legacy.  And you made it clear you wanted me off the team from day one—’

‘What?’

‘“Enjoy it while you last, brah,” you said.  It was a great introduction to the team I depend on for my scholarship.  Even though you didn’t know about the scholarship—not for sure, to take your words at face value—until I said I had one while you were sick a couple weeks back.’

Nursey had no response for once.

‘Look.  I get it.  You don’t like me.  I can deal with that—I’m used to being no one’s favorite.  As you say far too frequently, it’s chill.’

‘It’s… um.’  Nursey looked crestfallen.  Also like he needed to say something, and say it while seated.

Dex stepped back from the door, motioned Nursey in, pointing at the chair at his desk.  He flopped back down onto his bed and waited.  Nursey looked at the freshly-vacuumed floor, tracing the grain of the carpet with his steel-grey eyes.  Dex fervently hoped he wasn’t the cause, this time.

‘This probably requires more backstory than you want or would care about, but…’

‘You seem like you need to tell me.  And it’s not like we’re fighting right now, so go for it, dude.’

‘God, I never know which of you I’m getting.’

‘Huh?’

‘I went to Andover.  It wasn’t the happiest time.  Shitty can probably give you a more neutral evaluation of the place.  I survived it, let’s call it, by never overtly caring about anything important.’

‘Bullies?’

‘And friends who either helped them or couldn’t stop them.  And Shitty, who graduated.  I…’  Nursey’s eyes got as far as Dex’s shoes before they stopped, as if he couldn’t look Dex in the face.  He went back to his carpet inspection.  ‘I was unfair to you, like, from the start.  Made a bad joke to fit in and took your reaction for dislike and then we settled into our terrible dynamic.  I don’t have any really good excuse for it, and I’m sorry.’

‘Thanks, man.  That wasn’t the thorough background you threatened, but if you need to vent, I’m here for it if you’ve got no one better able to listen and support you.  Or if you need anyone punched.  I’m pretty good at that.  What’d I do, though, that got us so badly off to start with?’

‘I can’t honestly remember anything particular.  But, well.’  Nursey was actively squirming in his desk chair, now.  ‘I couldn’t separate you out from the assholes at Andover.  And sometimes it’s like whiplash, when I get Angry Dex or Weirdly Caring Dex.’

‘…oh.’  _There it is_ , Dex thought, anxiety making it all feel inevitable.  _Here’s where it falls apart again, and for good.  I can only ever get to the cusp of things being good.  Ma and Ryan were right after all.  I’m not careful enough to make sure I’m not a bully._

‘…okay, dude?’

‘Huh?’  It’s more a gasp than a word.  Dex noticed his shallow, erratic breathing, which—because nothing is ever easy—made it worse rather than better.

‘You’re kinda hyperventilating.  What can I do?’

_Fuck.  Fuckingfuckityfuck of all the people to see me like this.  He hates me—lumps me in with his bullies—now’d be the best time to get me back.  Be thorough about it._

‘Should I, like, call someone?’

‘ _NO_.’  Dex realized he’d curled up on himself, arms around his shins, pressing them into his chest.  He couldn’t make himself let go.  Couldn’t control his breathing.  Couldn’t manage anything.  Hang on, try to ride it out.

‘Sorry.  Tell me how to help.’

‘I—’  Ayup.  Definitely hyperventilating.  ‘Not—Can’t.’ another shuddering gasp.  ‘Not you—please—Chow?’  Dex’s voice broke.

Dex wasn’t actually aware of Nursey leaving—it was pretty much too late for Nursey not to be entirely aware of what was going on, his swirling thoughts taunted him.  He didn’t hear the panicked call in the hallway or the speed of Chowder’s arrival.

‘The fuck did you _do_ , Nursey!?  _You were just supposed to deliver him pie, not give him a panic attack_.  I’m going inside.  You go home.  I will come talk to you **_later_**.’

Dex didn’t register anything until Chowder had been talking long enough that his thoughts tried to figure out whether the monologue was bubbly or droning, or whether it could be both at once or—oh.  Chowder was here.

‘Dex, you in there?’

Dex huffed, trying to laugh.  Then tried to not cough.  Nodded.

‘Can I give you a hug?  I think you need one.’

Dex started to shake his head, afraid he’d lash out if touched, but imagined Chowder’s face—probably deploying the damn puppy dog eyes—and nodded instead.  It was surprisingly gentle: he’d expected the goalie’s usual flying tackle.  Chris tucked himself in around Dex sideways, hugging a shoulder into his chest and extending his legs under Dex’s, forcing him to unfurl himself at least a little.

The extension of Dex’s legs broke his grip around his knees, and Dex found that he could move his hands, although they were stiff and hurt to stretch too much.  Chowder shifted so he was inside Dex’s arms and went full limpet.  Dex just tried to relearn how to breathe as his best friend rubbed a hand soothingly up and down his back.  He was tired, suddenly.

‘God, you didn’t even get any of your pie.  We should fix that.  Where do you keep your forks?  I’ll get you a slice and you can eat it.  I’ll just be right here.’

‘First, uh,’ His throat was dry, and Dex finally did cough.  ‘Water?  Forks’re.  There.’  Dex flapped a hand in the general direction of the drawer he kept his stolen utensils in without opening his eyes.

‘Here’s your water bottle,’ Chowder said, putting it in Dex’s hand.  ‘If you can open your eyes, I’ve got a plate with pie for you.’

Dex complied, and was rewarded with a grin as bright as the dorm fluorescents.  He squinted and Chowder curled back around him, grinning as he used one hand to shade Dex’s eyes from the lights.  Chowder kept up a stream-of-consciousness monologue about the day’s events while Dex ate that he hadn’t been present for, including the various antics of Ollie and Wicks, Ransom and Holster’s latest horrifying would-you-rather poll (would you rather be unable to experience or conceive of any equivalent of visual stimuli, or else be able to see your current location and surroundings from all angles and perspectives at all times?  It had apparently taken some rewording to get around Shitty’s pedantry), and the advent of Jack actually asking if Bitty could make him a dessert sometime—turns out the Captain got homesick sometimes, making him crave French-Canadian sweets.  At no point was Nursey mentioned, nor inquiries made.

When he’d finished, Dex set his plate aside on his desk, to clean later.  Chowder protested at being pulled along when Dex leaned forward.

‘Thanks, Chowder.  I… can’t even explain how much I appreciate this.  I—  No one ever—’

‘Dex.  It’s okay.  You’re fine.  I’m happy to.  But if you’re good—and tell me if you’re not—I gotta go deal with Nursey.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.  He was supposed to apologize and it should all have been better.  I’ll be back once I’ve finished burying him.’

‘Don’t murder him.  You wouldn’t get away with it.  Also, he did apologize.  This wasn’t his fault.  Make him understand that?’

Chowder gave Dex a flat look—somewhere between Terrifying Goalie and extreme dubiousness—and Dex had half-raised his hands in reflexive surrender before realizing it.

‘Please?’

‘You had a _panic_ attack, Dex.’

‘Don’t I fucking know it.’  Dex rolled his eyes.  ‘I was fucking there.  Well, for as there as I was.  Still wasn’t his fault.  S’not like he knew about my anxiety, my tendency toward panic attacks, or anything else relevant to it.  Yell at him all you like so long as you leave with him knowing he didn’t cause that.’

* * *

William was in the back room of Jim’s shop, cannibalizing a rolling dishwasher someone had abandoned there when Doug had declared it beyond salvage.  The guy hadn’t even asked for cash in exchange, just sighed and thanked him and walked out.  The room had a table all four employees could sit at near the front, and several open spaces of varying sizes in and around the industrial shelving units full of parts.  A radio played shitty country or classic rock, depending on whose day it was.

William sat on the concrete floor in one of the smaller open areas, toward the back—farther away from the noise and his uncle’s employees and his customers.  He was methodical in his stripping.  There were three piles: one for parts he had no complaints with; one for busted beyond use parts; and one for questionables or those that required work or edge cases.  One of the dishwasher’s casters was shattered, which had probably tilted the whole thing off true and slowly degraded the internal workings.

‘Finish up and get out, William.  I’m not paying you overtime to tear apart dead machines.’

‘You don’t pay me overtime to do anything, Jim.  This won’t take that much longer, but if you’re in a hurry to leave, I can always just lock up myself.’

‘I would like to have dinner sometime.  We closed half an hour ago, kiddo.  Doug and Joshua have already gone home.’

William didn’t react.  No—William studiously failed to react.  Paused.  Checked his watch.  It was indeed almost six.  Shrugged.  Looked up at Jim with a rueful smile and the beginnings of a blush.

‘Huh.  Got lost in the dishwasher, I guess.’

‘Thinking about your new skates?’

‘Not new, but new to me.  And they’re on hold, yeah.  Guy at the shop said they’re only barely past broken in.’

‘Will your feet actually fit in them?’  Jim laughed, but it was an earnest question.

‘It’ll be a nice change.’

‘You keep dismantling that—I’ll start through your pile of questionables.  We can lock up together and I’ll give you a ride to the shop.’

‘Sounds good.  Thanks.’

They worked in silence.  William occasionally watched Jim inspecting parts to see which pile they went into.  At one point, while William was removing the pump motor, Jim left to retrieve a large trash bin.  He filled it with the reject pile and started distributing the middle pile between it and the keepers.  Once he caught up to William’s progress, he began ferrying the parts to keep to their various new homes on the shelves.  Soon, William had a plastic dishwasher corpse with no purpose in life, and the usable parts had been dispersed properly.

William stood, stretched, and went to the sink by the table to wash his hands.  He was drying them off with a rag when Jim tapped him on the shoulder with an envelope.  Will took it and smiled, small and careful.  This paycheck was the last he needed to save up for his new skates.  He felt giddy, like he had to restrain himself from breaking into dance—never mind how he didn’t dance, didn’t know how to.  The impulse was still there.

They locked up together, making sure everything had been properly put away, sharing the work without conversation or the need for it.  William waited in the shade for Jim to turn the alarm on and lock the front door behind him, sheltering himself from the heat, if not the humidity.  It wasn’t until they were in Jim’s truck and William saw the clock on the dashboard announce that it was six fifteen that he realized he couldn’t deposit the check today.

‘Shit.’

‘What?’

‘My skates are on hold—I can get them before they close at seven.  But this check isn’t enough and the bank’s closed so I can’t deposit this to pay for it from my account.’  Breath.  I don’t know how much longer they’ll.’  Gasp.  ‘Keepthemonholdformeand—’

‘Billy—William.  Breathe.  In and out.  Iiiiin and out.  You’re okay.  We’re going to the store, and you’ll get your skates.’  Jim spoke slowly, without pitching his voice higher, so it was reassuring without being patronizing.  William had always appreciated Jim’s talent for that distinction.  ‘How much of this was going to the skates?’

‘A little over half.’

‘I tell you what.  You hand me the check back.  I’ll pay for the skates today, and I’ll take the remainder out of your next two checks, split evenly.  Sound like a fair deal?’

‘More than fair.  I—’

‘We’re all set, then.  Let’s get you some skates.’  Jim parked, cranked up the window on his side.  ‘C’mon.’

‘Thanks.’

* * *

Winter came to Andover, and life shrank to encompass little more than hockey and homework.  His prep season was well under way, and Nurse had found a rhythm between classes and skating that allows him to get through both.  But for the people, he’d be enjoying things—as it was, Shitty was nearly the team’s sole saving grace.  The captain was a good enough guy, driven but bro-ey as all hell.  It took him just as long as everyone else to remember that Nurse wasn’t there on an athletic—or any other—scholarship.

The ice was the best part of hockey.  Nurse could stop thinking and just _move_.  He didn’t have to worry about how he felt—too much, too little, too weird—only to use those feelings as fuel to continue slicing his way across the ice.

Shitty was a forceful presence in his life.  He wasn’t a prefect himself—too much responsibility, too much authority, too much attention directed his way—but his roommate (Fredrick Charles Wood IV) was, so he got treated almost as if he were one.  Sometimes he took Fred’s shifts on study hall.  If the dorm faculty noticed, they said nothing about it.  After all, everyone either liked or was amused by Shitty.  Even when he flouted the rules.

It was, therefore, not surprising in the least when Shitty burst through Nurse’s doorway—the door partly closed so Nurse could hide that he was curled up in blankets on his bed.   Some sort of sad pop music played from his computer speakers—something about asking the wizard for a smaller heart—and Shitty checked his grand entrance.  Instead, he shut the door behind him, making sure it latched.  Nurse shrugged out his blankets enough to see who it was; Shitty made an inquiring face.  Nurse grimaced.

‘Well, you’ve found me.’

‘Hey—you okay?  I mean.  I think the answer’s fairly clear there, but just so we’re clear here, there’s no judgment or anything.  If you wanna talk about it, I’m all ears.’

Nurse shifted about so he was sitting up, leaning back against an Imogen Heap poster on the wall in a t-shirt so thin it was on the verge between shiny and translucent.  He quickly rewrapped himself in blankets.  Stuck a hand out to pat the bed beside him, which was all the invitation Shitty needed—he plopped down on the bed and promptly took up the entirety of it that Nurse wasn’t occupying.

‘Can’t even really say it was that bad of a day.  Nothing went wrong.  Classes were decent.  No team dinner to survive.  No surprise news from my parents—that was last week—but… I got back to my room and the floor fell out.’  Nurse snuffled a bit and tried to shrink in on himself.

‘Bad days don’t have to have causes, my dude.  But if there’s anything you wanna talk about, I’m here now.  And at times when I’m not, come find me or text me or whatever.  I’m here for you.’

‘I… thanks.’

‘I’ve got an idea.  Get some work, if you have any, take your blankets, and bring it all to my room.  I’ll make Fred actually do his own prefecting, and we can have tea and some of these ridiculous tea cookies my mom sent me.’

‘Are you proposing we have a fucking tea party, dude?’  Nurse snorted.

‘Bring stuffed animals if you got any!  If not, Fred’s got this turtle we can borrow, and my elephant will most certainly be in attendance.’

‘An elephant?’

‘My dad really wants me to be a Republican.  I got her when I was little.  Elephants are cool and have really good memories and shit—and are protective of their families.  I think I’mma skip out on the animalian politics beyond that.  Anyway, brah, does that sound like a good plan?’

‘Tea and cookies and company sounds—sounds like an improvement.’  Nurse nodded to himself as if he were the one he was convincing.  He got up, grabbed a French book and the poetry they’re reading for English, and wrapped himself up in the fuzziest of his blankets.  Shitty nodded like a sergeant inspecting soldiers, and they marched down the empty hall past the open doors of his floormates’ rooms.

Shitty led the way, threw open the door to his room—closed as only a prefect’s could be during study hall.  ‘Woody, my man.  You’re on duty.  Go do it.’

Wood sat at his desk, large enough that the standard issue dorm chair looked like a child’s size beneath him.  He still wore the button-down and slacks he’d had on during the school day, never bothering to change out of dress code. 

‘B.  I’m working on my Physics here.  You agreed to cover for me.’  Wood didn’t look up from the problem set.

‘That was before I decided to be the nurturing prefect your ass can’t handle being and hold a tea party,’ Shitty said like he was explaining that he’d already won the fight that hadn’t started yet.  ‘Your turtle accepted your invitation, by the way, and there’s space only for him.  So go check up on the froshlings and make sure they’re all doing their homework.  Also, when you’re out, tell Mr. Glass that Nurse is in here rather than his own room.’

‘I’ll be in the common room, then.’  He grunted at Nurse as he stalked out of the room, physics book and a sheaf of papers under one arm and a blue pen just visible behind his ear and under his mop of brown hair.

Shitty audibly rolled his eyes at his roommate’s departing back and grinned at Nurse as he crouched beside the lowest ‘shelf’ of his milk-crate-and-duct-tape bookshelf and produced a small faux-Japanese tea pot, a hot pot, a tin of loose leaf green tea, and a weirdly shaped tin of tea cookies that exuded money.  He motioned for Nurse to make himself at home at the hideous low table with a chessboard unevenly painted on it—just grab a pillow from wherever, brah—filled the hot pot with water from a brita he kept in the room’s fridge (a prefect’s privilege, and a primary reason to put up with Wood).  Shitty then turned to dig out the other guests from the bunk beds.

‘Nurse, I would like to introduce you to, uh, Mr. Turtle and Phanty.’

Nurse smiled, shaky but genuine, and made as if to shake their hands.  Shitty operated the plush side of all necessary handshakes, grinning like a fool.  He settled in against the wall and lets the well-intentioned buffoonery wash over him.  Shitty, it seemed, was determined to be his friend.

That was new.


	8. Chapter 8

A week passed.  Dex spoke to Nursey only on the ice, only looked at him with guilt etched on his face.  Nursey had no idea what the fuck was up, and Dex wouldn’t _talk_ to him.  He just vanished like he always did, a ginger goddamn Houdini.  Nursey didn’t know what to do, so he didn’t do anything.  So nothing changed.  The day before the last day of finals—two days before the dorms closed for winter break—only his poetry final remained.

Chowder had lost his shit at Nursey the night it happened, a reminder if he ever needed one of all of the many and varied reasons goalies were not to be fucked with.  He concluded the browbeating with assurances he said came from Dex that the panic attack—fucking really?  Fuck—wasn’t his fault, followed immediately by an assertion that it had to have come from _somewhere_ and Nursey probably hadn’t helped.  Chris wasn’t passive aggressive, like Bitty might be.  He just laid out exactly what he thought and then went back to being more or less cheerful (i.e. the least amount of cheerful he could possibly manage absent a disaster or a lost game).

Sure, finals were fucking with everyone, but Nursey felt more adrift than usual with Dex avoiding him and Chowder being pissed.  They still studied together, at least for Chinese.  Usually in the Haus, because Bitty baked stress pies.  Shitty was suffering from premature senioritis, and manifestly gave no fucks about his classes—just about his remaining law school applications.  Somehow he had three papers and only one proper exam.

It was only a modest surprise, then, when Nursey answered a pounding on his dorm room door to find Shitty standing in the hall with an armful of blankets, a bag full of pillows, a six-pack of beer, and a shit-eating grin on his face.  He snickered at whatever expression Nursey had on his face, motioned him aside, and strode into Nursey’s single.  Shitty started humming along with the Frank Ocean piping out of Nursey’s laptop.

‘You’ve had a bad week.  I have overabundant free time and insufficient fucks to give.  It seemed like a trip down memory lane was in order.  Good music for that, incidentally—it’ll add in the soundtrack to all our phone calls my freshman year.  But this time we can actually drink.  There’s cord and safety pins in the bag, too, so we can set this up all proper.  Dex offered some critiques of my blanket fort building prowess the last time I put one up.’

‘How is he?’

‘Anxious.  Across all spectra.  Thinks he’s fucking up the team, the Haus dynamic, whatever chance of friendship with you he had, his finals, his scholarship, you name it.  I staged a minor intervention earlier with Lards—you shoulda fuckin’ seen it, brah.’

Nursey said nothing, but motioned for him to start telling the story.  Shitty got some of Nursey’s picture hangers out of his desk, while Nursey found a dress shoe to act as a hammer for the nails.  He offered the other of the pair to Shitty, who took it with a manic grin.  Maybe that was a bad idea (too late now).  It looked like it would take three lengths of cord to do a fort properly—front, back, and one in the center between them to keep the ceiling from drooping in.  Dex had suggested that last one, at some point, in a weirdly formal debate in the Haus about the proper structuring of blanket forts.

‘So, I was trying to explain to him that he was a good guy, as if that were in doubt—no, Nurse, don’t you fucking start with me, I know you have issues, but he is and you know it—and tell him that the only way he’s fucking up dynamics is by absenting himself.  And Lards is there, too.  Sitting on the floor, looking all impassive and understanding up at him.  Inching closer to me.  Ends up climbing me from the ground to piggy-back hold like a goddamn koala.  I think that was what got him to finally laugh.  He’s promised to come to the Epikegster tomorrow.’

Nursey giggled at the image of a Lardo-koala.

‘All I can think of right now is Lards going death-from-above on us, not like a cat but like the angriest, most deadpan drop-bear ever.’

‘Dammit, Nurse, you aren’t supposed to be offering me nightmare fodder when I’m over here trying to distract and comfort you.’

‘You know you like it.  Plus, it’s Lardo—you probably think it’s hot.’

‘Plead the fifth.  I invoke my right to silence and refuse to answer any further questions without my lawyer present.’

A few minutes passed, as they pounded the nails into the wall and tied the cord to the picture wire loops to the picture hangers.  Blankets were draped and safety-pinned.  Before too long, there was a room within the room, a smaller sanctuary floored in pillows and strewn with blankets.

‘Did you bring your elephant, bro?  Blanket fort demands a tea party.  The beer will keep for later.  By which I mean that _I_ will keep the beer for later.’

‘Shit, dude, you’re right.  Lemme go get her.  Before I go, though, who’s your animalian representative?  You never did bring one to tea at Andover.’

‘I didn’t have one at school.  I brought Liz with me to Samwell, though.’

‘Liz?’

‘Chyeah, dude.  Liz.’  Nursey reached into the well created by the curve of the mattress corner, the bedpost, and the corner of the wall and pulled out a small blue lizard, its velvety fabric worn down in places from years of aggressive cuddling.  He offered up a small lizard foot for handshaking introductions.  ‘Liz, Shits.  Shits, Liz.’

‘Dude.  Kid you was _terrrrrible_ at naming things.’

‘Like you did better with Phanty.  It’s, like, the same exact principle at work.  You go get your voting guide and I’ll set up here.  You still prefer tisanes over real tea, right?’

‘Yeah, man.  You know I prefer herb.’

Nursey rolled his eyes at Shitty’s retreating back.  Alone, he got his laptop and brought it and the charger cord into the blanket fort, then bundled himself up in blankets and got to working on a poem.  Channel Orange finished playing, and Parts of Speech came on to follow it.  Nursey promptly fell into the words and lost track of time.

You always told me that trains inhaled people  
And exhaled them again farther down the rails.  
Drank oil to sustain their hides of iron,  
Ate coal, and—down the line—shat dark plumes of smoke.  
But when I asked you what kept trains in motion,  
You claimed it was a discontented heart. 

It was never clear what was in your heart—  
Spending your days riding trains, watching people.  
My theory was that you needed the motion,  
The stability found in riding the rails,  
To anchor your persona, to draw the smoke  
About yourself and shield your wounds in iron. 

The problem, though, with armor made of iron  
Is it guards too closely an aching heart,  
And its protection vanishes with the smoke  
That stationed trains let fly when breathing people.  
There are safer things to do than ride the rails,  
But I cannot deny the lure of motion. 

Someone knocked twice on his door.  Not, like, firmly, but also not a tap, either.  Not Shitty, who only knocked the first time in any day’s interactions.  Nurse whined as he disentangled himself from half the blankets he’d been curled up in to go get the door.  He still had one on, something like a half-cape of red fuzzy fleece.

Dex was turning to leave as Nursey opened the door.  He stopped, caught between staying and leaving, turned toward Nursey all deer-in-headlights, stammered a bit—nothing intelligible.  Nursey quirked an eyebrow—amusement, confusion, inquiry—and motioned his defense partner into his single.

‘If I’d known you were coming by, I’d have told you to bring a stuffed animal.  They’re mandatory for admission to blanket-fort tea parties.  Shitty’s off to get his elephant.  Liz, there, can act as your representative pro tem, if you’re cool.  Tea?’

‘Uh… what.’

‘Take your shoes off if you’re coming into the blanket fort.  Do you want tea?  Shitty’s gonna be back in a few minutes with a stuffed elephant his parents—his dad, probably—gave him in an attempt to make him a Republican.’  Nursey stopped and looked at Dex, who was taking off his shoes like instructed.  ‘Or was this something you just wanted to, like, say at me and then vanish again?’

Nursey hated that he could hear how cagey he suddenly sounded.

‘Sorry.  I—shit.  If you’re busy with Shitty, I can come back—’

‘Nope.  You already have your shoes off.  And you pretty clearly need this blanket fort, dude.  Liz says she’s totally willing to be your sponsor this time, but you gotta commit to bringing your own animalian representative next time.’

‘You are so fucking weird, Nursey.  Blanket fort does look inviting, though.  Whose idea was the cross-beam cord?’

‘Shitty’s always in charge of architecture after the one time I made it all fall down on us.  Said you had some stern critiques of his abilities the last time you saw his work.  It is nice to not have the roof sloping down into my face.’

Nursey plugged his electric kettle in outside the fort, but within easy reach of his nesting spot.  He got three mugs and brought down his full assortment of teas and tisanes—Dex would have to find something that suited him.  Dex plunked himself down, crossed his legs, and leaned back against the wall.  Like he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to be there.  Like he might bolt at a moment’s wrong phrasing.

‘So.’

‘So.’  Dex nodded.  ‘Speaking of Shitty.  He read me a kind version of the riot act earlier.  While Lardo was, like, climbing him.  Literally started on the floor and slowly scaled him.  It was… fuckin weird.  Among other things, he said that the only way I was fucking things up was by avoiding you, but I feel…  I feel like I’d fuck it up by being around you, since I remind you of bullies past.  I don’t want to make you feel, like, threatened or anything.’

Nursey took a deep breath.  Stalling, partly.  Wondering whether he could text Shitty to take his fucking time coming back.  Wishing he could crawl back into his blanket burrito and drown himself in poetry.  Realizing Dex was waiting for a reaction other than a deep breath.

‘You don’t have to ghost after practices.  Or, like, deprive yourself of team bonding or whatever.  You don’t have to, like, self-sabotage to make it clear that you’re sorry for bringing up bad memories you didn’t know about to begin with.  Flagellation’s not a good look on anyone, Poindexter.  It’s…’ Another breath.  Honesty begets honesty.  ‘It’s a lot of small things, I guess.  Well, the race stuff is big, but it’s not like you’re some honky with a tire iron or a hose or whatever.  It’s the assumption that money trumps race, privilege-wise.  And that the money means that I don’t have to—and, in fact, don’t—work hard.  Like you do.’

The kettle was bubbling, and dinged to alert the unobservant that hot water was ready.  Nursey paused his halting explanation to pour water into two mugs, offer one to Dex, and get himself some oolong.  He didn’t want to pin Dex down on those assumptions, so he changed topics.

‘There’s a buncha teas there.  Sugar packets, too, but no cream.  There might still be some cider packets in there, or if you’re really lucky, some shitty hot chocolate.  Do not recommend—it’s mostly for when I get low blood sugar.  Take your pick.’

It took work to not roll his eyes when Dex picked out a bag of Irish Breakfast and two packets of sugar, but Nursey managed it.

‘It’s not so much that you’re a bully, cuz I haven’t seen that at all.  And I think that’s what… fucked things up last week.  And I’m sorry about that.  Seriously.  But your casual propensity for violence?  It gives everything else an edge of menace.  Like I could provoke you one step too far, and—’

The door banged open, and Dex jumped.

‘Dude, sorry it took me a tick.  Got distracted by Johnson texting me with questions about Edie Windsor and her case last year.  Did you know that she—wait, whose shoes are these?’

‘Ten minutes, Shitty.  Leave the elephant, though.  She’ll get your nasty-ass tisane started.  And keep Dex company while he’s at it.’

‘Uh, sure, bro.  I’ll just pop down to the vending machines.  Cheesy-crackers still your go-to?’

‘Ch’yeah, man.  Walk leisurely.’

An elephant flew into the opening to the blanket fort, skidding trunk-first into Nursey’s shins.  The door closed behind Shitty.  Nursey offered Dex the stuffed animal, which Dex took and cradled ridiculously for a moment before settling into a comfortable position on some pillows.

‘You two are good friends.’

Nursey shrugged—not quite a meh response, but more a “you know.”

‘He’s...  Shits is my oldest friend.  Kept me sane—safe—my first year at Andover.  Convinced me it was worth it to stay.  He was almost a prefect in my dorm—think Harry Potter, but more authority, except he wasn’t actually a prefect.  So, a lot less actual responsibility.  His roommate, Fred, was one.  A prefect, that is.  Shitty’d set up blanket forts in their room every so often, and drag me down there during study hall when I was having a shit time of it.  So, like, weekly.  He’d kick Fred out if I needed to talk or just, like, recover my chill.’

‘You don’t pick on other people, Nurse.  I don’t actually get physically into it with people who aren’t themselves bullying others.  That’s, like, Rule One.’  Nursey could hear the capital letters, and the scope of his unintended accusation came into focus.  ‘I may spend frustrating amounts of time wanting to strangle you because of your, well, everything, but even when you’re doing your goddamnedest to provoke me to murder, the worst that’ll happen is yelling, and possibly needing to escape if…’

‘Escape?’

Dex didn’t answer for a minute.  He stilled, like he’d revealed too much and had to decide whether to stay or flee.  Eventually, he settled back down onto a throw pillow, tucking his feet under it.  When he spoke, he addressed his knees rather than Nursey.

‘Anxiety.  Like you saw.  I can usually feel when it’s coming on—it’s like weather, but never the good kind.  So I can sometimes tell when I need to fuck off.  Sometimes it comes on like blind panic, and that’s the only time I really shove to get out.  Everything gets… like the world’s too small, or my skin is, and it’s trapping me.  It gets bad enough that I focus down on thoughts, which just make it all worse and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat.  I hate being like that in front of other people—they don’t react well, or nicely.  But even if you started shit, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t fight you.’

Shitty actually knocked on the door—shave and a haircut.

‘I come bearing snacks.  You’re getting the last big tube of M&M minis, Dex.  Do I need to go for another lap around?’

‘You okay, Dex?’

‘Mostly, yeah.  You?’

‘Chill.  C’mon in, Shits.’

The door opened immediately, and then closed again.  Dex could hear the sound of a belt being undone, a zipper before pants hit the floor, and the shfff of a shirt pulled overhead.  The sheet-flap door to the fort moved aside and a boxers-clad Shitty started to do a half-assed somersault into the blanket fort when he saw that tea was set up where his back would have gone.  He crawled in instead, like a nearly civilized caveman.

‘Snacks all around.  How’re you getting on with Phanty, Poindexter?’

‘She’s pretty awesome, Shitty.  What’s her story?’

‘Got her as a kid from my dad.  Only cute thing he ever gave me.  Later explained how it was to remind me who I should be.  I took it to mean “possessed of a good memory, matriarchal, and protective of family,” not “Republican.”’  Shitty paused, then added—apparently remembering Dex’s laptop sticker—‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that.’

Nursey suppressed his smirk as Dex rolled his eyes.  Now was _not_ the time to aggress at Dex in any way.  Now was time to chill with… friends.  They were—should be, anyway—friends.  Instead, Nursey raised an eyebrow at Shitty and shook a couple packets of tisanes at him.  Dex pursed his lips, but his shoulders relaxed as Shitty got distracted by the miracle of plants in hot water.

‘Dudes.  Imagine how sw’awesome it must have been for the first dude who made tea to discover what it was he’d found out.  Like—’

‘That was… impressively redundant, Shits.  Also, I’m pretty sure that variations on tea happened a buncha different times?’  Dex looked to Nursey for confirmation.

‘Yeah, man, but, like, really.  Tea’s fuckin’ delicious.  Well, this is a tisane, but…’

‘On a scale of one to ten, how high are you, Shitty?’

‘Hmmmmmmmyes.’

Shitty slurped his tea and smacked his lips.  He leaned back against the sheet hanging down over the side of Nursey’s bed and wriggled around until he decided he was comfortable.  His flow bounced around his head as he did so.

‘Oh!  You being here saves me a trip to continue to harass you into joining us for the Epikegster, Dex.  You promised you’d come, brah—since you’re done avoiding Nurse.’

Nurse stifled his impulse to put a hand on Dex’s shoulder, suddenly tense at Shitty calling him out. 

‘Shitty, if I was still avoiding Nursey, would I be here in this blanket fort—in Nursey’s room—having tea with Nursey.  And you.  I get that you’re extra concerned for Nursey’s well-being, given the length of your friendship, but since you already dressed me down once today, maybe back the fuck off?’

‘Yeah, Shits, that was… not called for.  It’s chill, though—you’re chill, we’re chill.  Well, Dex isn’t chill, but that’s partly your fault right now.  Fucking with other people’s chills is against the ethos of blanket forts—you taught me that.  So either drink your mint and hibiscus and whatever or I can return Phanty once she’s done acting as Dex’s pro tem sponsor.  She and Liz are sharing that responsibility.’

Shitty adopted a look of contrition, which was undermined by his near-nudity and glazed eyes.  Dex flared his hands, fingers spread, an obvious effort not to clench his fists.  Nurse wondered whether this was the first time he’d seen Dex actually defend himself rather than defend an argumentative position.

‘My bad, Dex.  You’re right—I fucked up.  Sorry for that, and for harshing the tea party vibe.  Whatcha got in your mug?’

‘S’fine.  Irish breakfast.  My dad’s favorite—Ma would always brew a big pot of it for Sunday breakfast after church.’

Dex took a very deliberate sip of his tea, closed his eyes, and breathed.  _Home is smells and warmth and comfort_ , Nursey thought, taking a pull from his own mug.  There wasn’t much conversation after that, as the three of them settled into separate introspection.  Nursey tried not to be obvious as he watched Dex from the corner of his eye, relaxing in turn as his fellow D-man untensed.

Shitty waited until everyone had finished their tea to announce that he needed to go get the tub juice started in anticipation of the next day’s blowout, which either didn’t make sense or had worrying implications for shower practices.  He put pants on and took Phanty with him, playing with the bow on her headband as he left.  He carried his shirt in the other hand.  Nursey didn’t look up at Dex until a five-count after the door clicked shut.

‘Sorry about him, dude.’

‘Nah, it’s fine.  Shitty’s protective of you.  Sounds like he has reason.  Had reason.  It’s good you’ve got people who care about you, Nurse.’

Unsure how to respond, Nursey shrugged, a mound of blankets in a seismic shift.  It was chill, but he couldn’t say that.  No reason to immediately fuck up whatever sort of peace they might be forging here.

‘You need more tea?’  Nursey motioned to the kettle, still half-full.

‘Nah, I’m good.  This is almost drinkably cool now.’

‘I took you for the type to drink it scalding.’

‘Why?  Pain doesn’t taste nearly as good as actual flavor.’  A pause.  ‘What’ve you got left for finals?’

‘Just poetry.  I’m most of the way through this sestina, but the tercet—the three lines at the end that wrap the whole thing up—aren’t working right.’

‘Sestina?  Is that, like, a type of poem?’

‘Yeah, sorry.  Um.  So you know about stanzas, right?’  Dex nodded.  ‘So a sestina is six six-line stanzas followed by the tercet I was bitching about.  There are meter requirements, but I’m ignoring them for the most part.  It’s whatever.  The trick to the whole form is that you have to use the same words to end each line of each stanza, but each stanza uses them in a different—prescribed—order.’

‘That sounds wicked twitchy.  How do you even manage that?’

Nursey shrugged.

‘Lots of planning, and working backwards and forwards.  Helps to have words you can use in different ways without changing the spelling.’

‘So what’s your poem about?’

‘Uh… trains.  Like, subways and commuter rails and the distances between people.  How things change.  I can show it to you when it’s done if you want?’

Nursey hoped it was clear to Dex what sort of olive branch—what sort of invitation—this was.  He kept his breathing measured, not wanting to let slide how big an offer this was.

‘If you don’t mind that I won’t appreciate, like, the art of it.  Then, yeah.  That’d be cool.  Thanks.’

‘It’s—’  Nursey grinned and trailed off until Dex glared at him.  ‘cool.’

‘God, but you’re an asshole, Nurse.’  He was grinning, though, as he drained the last of his tea.

‘Have to live up to expectations, Dexy.  What do you have left?’

‘Just Spanish, and making sure Betsy doesn’t implode from Bitty’s stress-baking.  Not really sure which of those is more important.  I’ve got flashcards, though, for Spanish, so it should probably work out.  I hope.  Should I leave you to your poetry?’

‘For like an hour or so.  If you wanna meet up for dinner, we can text Chowder and come back here after.  If I’m done with my poem I can help with your flashcards, maybe?’

‘No need to, like, put yourself out to make it clear that we’re good, Nurse.  But that sounds good.  If the offer’s not made from guilt, I’d def take you up on it.  Who’s gonna be assigned to be your guard at the Epikegster tomorrow, do you know?’

‘Ugh.  Not sure.  R&H, if it’s one of their turns and they wanna pick up, will probably reassign it to you or Chowder, cuz Wicks got fired from it after last time, and Ollie wouldn’t do it without him.  Not sure how much I’ll be feeling the boozing tomorrow, though.  Hard to celebrate everyone going home when I’d rather we all, like, not.’ 

Nurse shrugged to veer back away from this too-much and too-honest conversation.  Nice Dex was fucking disarming, and that was dangerous.  He huffed, deliberately playing up his frustration.

‘I should probably get back to these last lines if I’m gonna have a prayer of being done by dinner, but I’ll see you again in a bit, yeah?’

‘Yup.  I’ll text Chowder to let him know the plan.  What should I tell him if he wants to bring Farmer?’

‘Ask politely if it can just be the Frogs for a night?  We haven’t done that in ages.’

‘I’ll try, man.  Good luck with your words ‘til then.’

* * *

The roof, as it turned out, actually wasn’t terribly hard to get to.  Nurse’s single had a window that opened out onto a part of it, and from there the rest of it was pretty accessible, give or take a climb.  It was one of the reasons he liked his room—it offered an excellent escape, when it wasn’t enough of a bolt-hole.

Going up to the roof was several sorts of forbidden, particularly after-hours, but that was neither here nor there.

Nurse tried to keep his visits to a minimum during hours people might notice.  It would be pretty poor form to get suspended for late-night (early-morning, really) stargazing and introspection.  It was hard, though, when his depression really got to him—the roof and the stars and the aloneness all helped minimize the bone-deep loneliness and the all-masking grey and the _hurt_ of living with it all and not really liking any of it.

Adams had written that a total perspective vortex would drive people to insanity, simply by demonstrating their utter insignificance to the grand scheme of life, the universe, and everything.  He was wrong, at least in Nurse’s case: his unimportance meant that the pressure and the pain couldn’t be as all-consuming as they felt.  The night sky would still be beautiful without him.

It was chilly out that night, particularly since he’d come up without a shirt—dumb, he knew, but at the same time he was so oversensitive right now that he couldn’t stand even the thought of coarse fabric on his chest.  He grew, well, not accustomed, exactly, to the cold, but inured to it—numb?  It stopped taking up much of his attention.  Instead, he listened to the night—the noises filtering up from the building below, the cars in the distance, a plane far overhead heading toward Boston.

Nurse startled at the noise of someone hoisting themself up onto his current tier of roof.  Looking over to see who it was and how big the trouble he was in would be, he saw it was only Shitty.

‘Awfully late at night to be out here.’

Nurse muttered something about poetry, suddenly intensely grateful to past-Nurse for bringing a moleskine up.

‘A bit dark for writing.’

Silence for a few minutes.  Shitty spread out one of the blankets he’d brought up and sat down cross-legged on it.  He set the other one beside him.

‘I brought blankets.  Figured you might be cold.’

Nurse continued to say nothing.  He took the blanket, though, set it beside him.  Didn’t wrap up in it.

 ‘You leave your window open when you come up here, and there’s a draft that comes through the gap under the door.’

‘…Thanks.’

‘Course!  Can’t have my favorite prep freezing up here on the roof.  Consider the headlines.  Consider the repercussions.  Consider how hard it would be to come up here and smoke up after they found you out here, rotten and sunbleached and stinking.’

‘That’s disgusting, Shitty.  I wasn’t gonna die up here, dude.  Also, you’re graduating, so it’s not like you’d have to suffer through any of those repercussions.’

‘It’s forty-five degrees up here and you aren’t wearing a shirt.  Why are you not wearing a shirt?  Being naked is my shtick.  You can’t steal it.’

‘The only clean ones were the scratchy ones.’  Nurse could hear how petulant he sounded, but didn’t want to elaborate. 

‘Blanket.’  Shitty patted the blanket he’d brought up spare.  ‘You mind horribly if I smoke up?’

‘Only if you mind horribly that I’m quiet.’

‘Nah, man.  The stars are, like, mad peaceful.  I just wanted to make sure you were okay up here.’

Nurse wrapped himself up in the blanket and lay down on Shitty’s blanket to watch the stars while the senior got high.

‘It’s better with the blanket.  Thanks.’

Shitty nodded.  Let a companionable silence settle.

‘When’s room draw?’

‘Huh?’  Nurse wasn’t prepared for the sudden shift in topic.

‘You got a roommate picked out?’

‘Nah.’

‘Single, or random, or new kid?’

‘Single.  Hidey-hole, yaknow?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s in a coupla weeks.’

‘Got your number?’

‘Yeah—it’s decent.’

‘I’ll get you a list of singles with roof access.  At least a couple are in the underclass dorms, so you should be in luck.’

‘How do you even have such a list?’

‘Bruh, how do you think I came to live in a room with roof access?  People who know people who like rooves get to know these things.  Just don’t fuck it up by, like, falling off or getting caught or anything like that, yeah?’

‘Chyeah, like I’d do that.’

‘You are a known klutz, Nurse.’

‘Not on rooves, Shits.  I’m slow and careful and very, very paranoid.  Falling scares the fuck out of me—any height that’s enough to do serious damage is height enough to have time to _think about what you’ve done_.’  Nurse shuddered at the thought.

‘Yeah, that sounds awful when you phrase it like that, bro.  Also remember to come up here with, like, blankets.  Makes it so much better.  So does company, most times.’

‘How often are you up here, Shitty?’

‘How often are _you_ , Nurse?’

* * *

William did not consider himself brave.  He did what he needed to do; he did what needed to be done.  He worked hard and played for the team—whatever that team may be—and kept his nose steadily to the grindstone.  He did not often give in to wishes or dreams, because there were very few worlds in which doing so would not backfire.

Not giving into hopes didn’t preclude recognizing problems and working to avoid impossible situations, though.  Nearly getting caught _looking_ at Luke after practice was definitely a way to create an impossible situation (but he was so goddamn _pretty_ it hurt sometimes).

William knew what he wanted—knew far too well what it was to want things he could not have.  He wanted to be himself, happily, with his family and with a partner—a boyfriend (no, a husband)—who was also his family, and for that all to work together.  What he knew most about wanting, though, was that there’s no use wanting what he knows he couldn’t have.  Eventually he’d slip, or give in to loneliness, or find someone who made him brave.  Eventually the rest of his family would find out, if he indulged even the least bit of… himself.  It would lead to problems and further grief he and his family didn’t need.  So it became time to plan.

College would be a variation on Kelly’s plan to survive life after the Poindexter family, if their parents find out.  A variation on Ryan’s plan, maybe.  One, though, that didn’t involve abandoning younger siblings.  Ironic that a staunchly Republican family with all the usual religious family values would produce so many offspring who weren’t straight.

Marion was in her office in the library during lunch, eating a Caesar salad, like William knew she would be.  He knocked on the frame of the librarian’s open door to get her attention.  She looked up and smiled, gesturing him to a seat in one of the chairs across from her at her desk.

‘Good of you to visit, Mr. Poindexter—have a seat.’

‘How’re you, Mrs. Donovan?’  He took the comfier of the chairs, a curved wooden frame padded with old leather cushions, worn but not cracked.

‘Well, and you?  You’ve been having quite the season.’

‘Yeah, it’s been… good.  I’m doing alright.  I, um, had a question?’  His eyes flickered from her eyes with their laugh-lines to the mole on one side of her face to the Safe Space sticker unobtrusively stuck to one of her office windows.

‘Must be important to have a question to preface it.’  Her smile softened, warmed.

‘I, well.  So.  I’ve been thinking about college.’

‘Excellent!  But perhaps Mr. Mason might be a better resource for you for that?

‘Maybe.  But I can’t go talk to him.  At least, not about what I really want in a college.  He and my ma are close.  He’d tell her.’  Will paused to breathe—to get his breathing under control.

‘So this is a private matter, then?  I’m sure I can help at least some.  Is this something I should worry about?’

‘I—maybe?  I mean, probably not.  I’d just rather not, um.  I don’t want them to know that I’m looking for a gay-friendly school.  For—for obvious reasons.’

‘Oh, William.  I’d be happy to help with that.  Would you like a hug?  You look like you might need one.’

William nodded, focusing on breathing still.  He’d said it.  Or, near enough.  He stood up as Marion pulled him into a hug, and he felt small—comforted rather, although it was hard to distinguish those, so he didn’t try—even though she came up barely to his shoulder.  He sniffled into her light brown hair.

‘First, we’ll come up with a list of colleges, and then we’ll work on the essays—and that I’ll send you to Mr. Mason for, and possibly one of your English teachers, so that appearances can be kept up for your parents and nothing is suspicious by avoiding the usual process.  We’ll find you a college or two that has a good hockey team and scholarships for it, and where I know a librarian or professor or someone.  Get tape—that’s what it’s called, right?—of you playing to the coaches there, and make it all happen.’

So William did his research, quietly and on safe computers whose browser history he controlled.  Gay-friendly schools with good hockey teams.  Not too far from Maine.  Not too expensive.  Scholarship opportunities.  Good CS department.  Marion helped him find schools and scholarships, too.  Put feelers out to the network of librarians William jokingly referred to as the Librarian Mafia (she had laughed, but had not denied it).

His parents were proud of his initiative, particularly in finding scholarships and limiting himself to applying to schools that might give him a sufficient ride.  They agreed to pay for the early application fee for Samwell because it could mean they wouldn’t have to pay for other application fees later on.

William knew the dangers of wanting, but he also knew that sometimes you could plan around the bugs in a system to still get something workable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the first part--and their first term. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. All poetry Nursey spouts will be credited where it's not my own, in case that weren't already clear. 
> 
> I'm not finished with Backwards and Forwards (the next part) yet, so it'll be 6-ish weeks until I start tossing that up (it's going to be rather longer, and I'd like to be at least 80% draft-complete before I start posting. That way, I can maintain a posting schedule and not feel like I'm gonna have to edit the fuck out of something I've already posted). It might take more time if work explodes (and there is an appeal that might).


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